A 100 Pages From Balthazar's Incantus
by SapphireShelle91
Summary: A 100 Pages From Balthazar's Incantus, for The Balthy 100 challenge.
1. Arcana Cabana

**Author's Note:** Um, I'm bored, even though I should be studying. I am completely obessed with this movie and it's characters and so I figured the only cure for these problems is to give 'The Balthy 100' Challenge a go. I'm not completely sure how I'll go with is, but I'm giving it a shot and writing for these characters is SO much FUN!  
Most of the themes will most likely be set in Merlin's time with the three apprentices because I am absolutely fascinated by them.  
Disclaimer: You probably all know I don't own the movie or any of the characters or anything along those lines. All I can say is mine are the ficlets that I write for the themes and the characters and so on.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the first installment to _**'A 100 Pages From Balthazar's Incantatus'**_.

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**1. Arcana Cabana**

"Searching for Master's heir? How exactly are we planning on doing that?" Maxim Horvath asked, rather out of the blue one afternoon, when the three apprentices were sitting out in the last of the summer's sun.

"How do you mean?" Balthazar asked. To anyone who happen to walk by them they would have appeared that he was fast asleep, lying flat on his back, his arms under his head, his body relaxed, when really his mind was a mess. Confusing emotions were running wild within him and he didn't quite know how to deal with them. They were so confusing and strange to him.

"Exactly how I mean. How are we going to do it?" Maxim replied rather tersely. Veronica felt her shoulders stiffen. _Oh please, not now. Don't start fighting. It is such a lovely day; let us at least have this afternoon fight free_.

She snuck a glance between the two, from where they sat on either side of her. When they had been younger they had sat like this so as to stop the boys from fighting over their food, now as men, it was to stop them from fighting over, well everything.

She couldn't understand it. Why couldn't they just get along any more? Not that Balthazar wasn't trying to get along with Maxim, but Maxim was always angry whenever Balthazar or Merlin or even herself tried to speak to him. Nothing seemed to please him or make him smile anymore.

"I guess we just travel around." Balthazar replied cautiously. Obviously he was as eager as she for a fight not to break out between them. Maxim on the other hand…

"Oh what an excellent idea, Balthazar. How on earth did you ever think of that? Of course, we'll have to travel around! Do you think the heir will just come waltzing up to us?" he spat back. Balthazar shoulders immediately hunched and his fingers twitched by his side as if he were trying to fight them against turning into a fist.

"Maybe." Veronica put in, as she noticed this too and the annoyed, hurt flair in Balthazar usually calm blue-grey gaze. Both men looked at her, slightly startled, as if they had forgotten she was there.

"What do you mean?" they asked as one, before glaring around her at each other. She sighed and moved a little forward, to try and keep the peace for a little longer. She didn't think she could deal with another headache from one of these two fights.

"What I mean is, look at us." She gesture to all three of them. "Did Master come looking for us?" the two men open their mouths but she waved them silent. "No, he did not; we came to him, did we not?"

"Yes, but he was in the area that we were in when he found us." Maxim pointed out hotly.

"Yes that is true, but he wasn't necessary in the area for us, was he? No, he was in the area that we were in for a number of months, years in your case Maxim before any of us stumbled across his path" _it is like talking to children, but at least they aren't at each other throats,_ she thought before continuing. "So my idea is that we travel the world, but we stop, for say ten years in different countries. Settle down with a job or shop or something and wait for the heir to come to us."

She waited, almost nervously for their responses.

"I suppose that is a fairly solid plan. But it hasn't got anything to do with you just wanting to own your shop, has it?" Maxim asked, raised eyebrows. Her cheeks grew flushed.

"I would like to own my own shop…"

"I think it's a good idea." Balthazar muttered.

"Yes. Of course, you would." Maxim shot back and the two started glaring at each other again. Veronica sighed heavily.

"I just think that by having a shop would be a smart idea. If we were travelling and did so happen to find the heir, we'd have to go and find a place to settle them down, to train them and keep them safe from harm and so on. But if we have a shop, then the place to train them is already set up, we don't have to leave and - and I just think we'll be more likely to find the heir if we were settled down somewhere, rather than roaming the world wide." She shrugged her shoulders. Neither replied and she fought back an irritated sigh. They were both being so ridiculous and she was thoroughly fed up with the pair of them.

"Well, if you have any better ideas let me know will you please." She snapped rather tartly, as she rose to her feet, surprising both men, both whom open their mouths to protest and apologize but for once, she really did not what listen to either of them.

She was sick and tired of how they were acting with each other and with her. She wished with all her heart that they could return to how they once had been as children.

She ignored their calls for her to come back and that they were sorry as she stormed back to Merlin's tower.

Merlin eyed her almost sadly as she stormed past him, patting her arm gently before returning to his huge Incantatus.

A few hours later, she heard a soft, almost hesitant tap on her door and for a few moments she contemplated just ignoring. She knew perfectly well who it was, she just didn't know if it would be entirely safe to let him in when she was still fighting down the desire to throw something hard and heavy at his stupid head.

"Veronica." _Oh no, don't use that voice_, she groaned inwardly. How could his voice spoken so softly and gently turn her anger into warm and gentle, not to mention, much stronger feelings? But she wasn't about to let him know that she wasn't still angry with him.

"What?" She called coldly back to him.

"Please let me."

"And why, pray tell, should I?"

"Because I would much rather apologize to your face than to your lovely door."

"My lovely door that still has scorch marks on it because of the time you and Maxim were a little too enthusiastic with your fire magic." She called back, trying to fight back a grin as she heard an exasperated sigh from outside her room.

"Dear Door, I am deeply sorry for grievance offense that I and my fellow male apprentice have inflicted upon you. Would you please forgive us?"

To his slight surprise he suddenly found himself talking to not, and he had to admit to himself it was a rather badly scorched marked door, but to Veronica herself. He gulped nervously.

"Apology accepted. Let us move on before I change my mind and turn both you and Maxim into pigs."

"Why pigs?" Balthazar asked bewildered, though a small relieved smile was now playing on his lips.

"Because you two still eat like one." She replied calmly as she learnt against her doorframe, arms crossed, waiting.

_She's still mad_; Balthazar groaned mentally as he looked into her deep soulful brown eyes and saw the hurt and confusion that was in them.

He tried to lighten the mood.

"What would you call it?" he asked rather randomly. Veronica's eyebrow shot to her hair line.

"Call what?"

"Your shop, if you ever got it. What would you call it? What would it sell?" now that he had started questioning the idea of the shop, he found himself genuinely interested in the idea of having one.

"Um, I suppose I would sell artefacts. Things that we have found on our travels, because we're going to need money, lots of it with the way you two eat," he stuck his tongue out at her childishly. She ignored him and continued," and with all the countries that we are most likely going to visit, we're going to pick up things, knowing us. So I thought, let's have a shop, sell the artefacts that we have collected and keep you two both happy by having you bellies full." She ended rather bitterly, glaring briefly up at him before turning and glaring in the direction of Horvath's room.

"And you'd call it what?" Balthazar asked hurriedly. He didn't want her to get mad all over again at them. She looked back up at him surprised.

"Do you really care to know?"

"Yes."

"I don't exactly know but maybe because of the artefacts we're going to collect from all over world, maybe the word 'arcane' should be in the title." She shrugged.

"For secret and mystery?" he asked and she smiled up at him.

"It is just an idea. Maxim doesn't seem so keen on it."

"Probably because he can't stay still for more than a few minutes. Always on the move."

"Neither can you." She pointed out.

"But I am patient." He replied. She nodded in agreement, grinning.

"Patient almost to a fault." The two stiffen and glanced cautiously behind them to where Maxim stood. He looked rather guilty and ashamed of himself.

"I apologize for my earlier behaviour." Maxim said, looking more than a little uncomfortable as he said it, but he's eyes were pleading with them for their forgiveness. Veronica and Balthazar looked at each other than back to him.

"Veronica he just apologized."

"Yes, I know, heard it too, but my ears might be deceiving me."

"Or he might possessed."

"Or a shape shifter."

"Exactly." Balthazar nodded seriously at her before turning back to an exasperated Maxim. "Who are you and what have you done with Maxim Horvath?"

"I am the person who is going to beating you to a bleeding pulp with my sword if the two of you don't knock it off." Maxim growled, his cheeks turning slightly red. Balthazar and Veronica looked back at each other and grinned.

"Oh yes, that is most certainly is him."

"No doubt about, but you know he still might be possessed. He did just apologize and that is most certainly not normal Maxim Horvath behaviour."

"That is very true."

"Maybe we should test if it really is him. You know, test if he can create a Plasma bolt." Balthazar beamed wickedly at Maxim, who just glared at him for once again poking fun at his weakest attack spell.

"Or maybe I really should just start beating you to a pulp with my sword." Maxim replied.

"I can run faster than you."

"Then I'll cast Persian rug spell."

"And I'll just stick you in a mirror in return."

"Not if I do it to you first."

"Like to see you try!"

"Is that a dare…" mad giggling suddenly erupted in the corridor causing both men to stop their little argument to stare in bewilderment at their fellow apprentice, who was almost doubled over by the strength of her laughter.

"You two are arguing again." She giggled in delight. Both men looked at each other completely confused.

"Oh yes, um, you wanted us to stop that, didn't you." Balthazar said weakly.

"No, I want you two to stop fighting with each other, but this, this is completely fine." She laughed.

"Right and that makes perfect sense." Maxim muttered, shaking his head at Balthazar.

"Oh, but it does." She gasped out between her giggles, straightening up once more and positively beaming at the pair of them, leaving them both somewhat dumbstruck.

"So um about this shop." Maxim started awkwardly. He wanted to stop her laughing at them and figured talking about her beloved shop was one way to get her to stop.

"Hmmm?"

"What is it going to be called?"

"Something with Arcane in it apparently."

"I rather like 'Arcana'."

"Just to make it complicated and to involve those silly cards in too."

"Of course. And they are not silly." She beamed at them and the two simply grinned back at her.

_**Almost a Thousand Years Later**_

He didn't exactly know why he was remembering that particular day now, after almost a thousand years since it had happen, but he remembered it as clearing as if it had just happen yesterday.

He swallowed thickly as he continued to stare up at the two story empty shop in front of him.

She had always wanted a shop.

And he was sick of travelling, he just wanted to settle down for a little while, maybe ten years and wait for the Prime Merlinian to come to him, as she suggested that they should do and only now was he actually thinking of trying it.

For the last thousand years (give or take a few decades) it had hurt too much to settle down in one place for too long. The time that he stood still made him remember too clearly of the times that had passed and that he would never get back. Continually moving around made the pain more bearable. Until now. He was tired now, and all he wanted to do was rest and he felt… drawn to this little place like he never had before.

He didn't know why, but it had almost felt like it had been calling to him, waiting for him to arrive and it make this place his home for a couple of years as he waited for the Prime Merlinian to come and find him.

"Are you interested in renting this shop sir?" a man had just come out of the shop's front door and seemed more than a little startled to see him just standing there, but he was used to that, he startled most people on a good day and this wasn't a good day. He was remembering her and that always put him in a foul mood, though at the moment he suddenly felt filled with good humour and cheer. Odd feelings for him, but he accepted them with good grace. He could already feel a change in the air. Maybe, very soon, they would all be free.

"Yes, Yes I am."

_Arcana Cabana_. He'd call it that. She would like that, it would make her laugh. He smiled for the first time in over a decade as the man let him into the shop and started to show him around.

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**Author's Note: **Hope you enjoyed and reviews are deeply appreciated.  
Thanks for reading.

_**Arcane, adjective, means: Secret or Mystery**_  
_**Arcana/ The Major Arcana or trumps are a suit of twenty-two cards in the tarot deck**_  
_**Cabana, noun, means: a small permanent shelter erected near a swimming pool**_


	2. Trousers

**Author's Note:** I'm actually pretty pleased with myself at the moment. It's been ages since I've written so much fanfiction in so few days but with this Movie and these Characters, I just haven't been able to stop. I just love writing for these characters or correction I just love writing for Balthazar, Horvath and Veronica. I don't know why but these three just make me smile and are so easy to write for.  
Once again this is set in Merlin's time, when they are all apprentices.  
**Disclaimer:** You all know this isn't mine... correction the fanfic is mine just not the characters (sadly) or themes.  
Hope you enjoy.

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**2. Trousers**

_**Trousers, plural noun, means: another name for slacks or pants.**_

Trousers. Why did the boys get to wear them, while she could not?

Because she was a girl? Well, that was so silly and unfair and…

To save himself from further argument with a ten year old girl, Merlin permitted his youngest apprentice to wear trousers instead of the dresses that the girls of her age wore.

"Do I even want to know how you managed to convince Master to allow you to wear trousers instead of your dresses?" Balthazar asked Veronica when she had come out of her room to show him the altered version of one of his old pair of trousers and shirt. She smiled cheekily up at him and he shook his head, bemused by the power that this small girl already possessed to get her own way.

"Yeah, I thought I didn't." he sighed and ruffled her hair fondly.

"I just pointed out the obvious facts that dresses are heavy and slow girls down. That they take much longer to wash and mend then shirts and trousers do. And overall, wearing trousers and shirts are far more comfortable then wearing dresses."

"I'll take your word for it." Balthazar replied, stretching his long arms above his head. "You do know Maxim will most likely tease you about this, right?"

"Of course."

"Good. Just checking."

"It's not like it'll make much difference if he does. He was teasing me before because of my dresses making me so slow whenever we had to walk anywhere. Now at least, I will be able to keep up without tripping over cloth with every other step."

Balthazar just nodded his head in agreement.

He had lost count of how many times she had fallen over because she was running to keep up with their long legs and ending up tripping over the hem of her dress.

And her poor little hands!

He could still see the latest scapes on her tiny palms from the last time she had fallen over because of those dresses. But if wearing trousers instead of a dress kept her from scraping all the skin off her palms, then fine, he had no problem with giving her all his old (and smaller) trousers and shirts to her for her to wear.

They heard the front door of the tower open and close and glanced at each nervously.

_Well, here goes nothing_, Balthazar thought, as he went first, with Veronica on his tail, to the kitchen, station at the bottom of Merlin's tower.

"You're back early." Balthazar said brightly to Maxim, as the older boy dumped half a dozen parcels onto the wooden kitchen table.

"No thanks to you I might add." Maxim grumbled, before glancing up from the parcels on the table to his friend and frowned. "What did you do?"

"Why do you always jump to the immediate conclusion that I must have done something while you've been out?" Balthazar asked trying to retain his innocent face as he spoke, but already he could feel it slipping away the longer Maxim frowned at him.

"Because you usually do, do something while I am away. Where's Veronica? You didn't do anything to her, did you? If you got her locked in blasted mirror, Merlin is going to have your head."

"Nothing like that has happen." Balthazar yelped. As if he'd let Veronica get stuck in a mirror! Alright, so yes, he had accidently locked Maxim in one a few weeks back, but that had been an accident… more or less.

"Then why do you look so guilty then?"

"Not guilty. More not sure on how you're going to react about something."

"Oh, well that fills me with great confidence." Maxim growled in annoyance. Balthazar glanced behind him at Veronica, who shrugged.

_Might as well get this over with_, Balthazar thought with a sigh as he crossed his fingers behind his back, hoping that Maxim wouldn't tease the girl too much about this. Veronica stepped out from behind her Maxim eyebrows shot to his hair line.

"Why didn't any one tell me about this?" Maxim demanded as he glared from Veronica to Balthazar.

Balthazar frowned slightly. This wasn't exactly how he thought Maxim would react to Veronica' "new outfit". Tease her about it, most definitely, but be angry about it?

Balthazar couldn't understand that since it had be more or less Maxim fault for putting the idea that Veronica should wear trousers instead of her dresses into her head in the first place.

"Um, it was kind of sudden, actually." Balthazar replied, deciding to play along with whatever Maxim was at.

"Sudden? What did he just wander in here?" Maxim asked still sounding relatively annoyed.

"Huh?" Balthazar and Veronica both yelped. What in the world…

"Maxim, what, by all the powers in this world, are you on about?" Balthazar choked.

"Who's the boy?" Maxim demanded now sounding rather angry.

"That – she isn't – Maxim, this is Veronica." Balthazar pushed Veronica fully in front of him into the dying light of the sun, so that Maxim could see her more clearly.

"Oh yes, so it is. Wait, Veronica, why are you wearing boys' clothes?" Maxim asked as he pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to ignore Balthazar hopeless laughter in the background.

"Well, because I don't like dresses." Veronica replied simply and sweetly.

"Yes, but you are a girl. Girls are meant to wear dresses." Maxim pointed out, still pinching the bridge of his nose.

"Well that is just silly. Boys get to do so many things because they get to were trousers instead of dresses and that's not fair. I want to be able to run and jump and fight with you two without my silly dresses getting in the way. And if by wearing trousers means that I can do all that, then so be it." She shrugged and Maxim nodded, completely speechless.

"Oh and Maxim." Veronica said, as she turned to leave, to go and find their Master and coax him out of his study so that he spent sometime with his apprentices and to get some food into him.

"Hmmm?"

""You should be please about this." She said cheekily.

"Oh and why should I be?" He asked almost dreading the answer.

"Because you are the one who gave me this idea in the first place." She laughed at his shocked expression before she went off, bounding up the stairs to the top of the tower, to their Master's study.

There was silence in the kitchen before Maxim turned his gaze from the stairwell to his fellow apprentices, noting the bluish tone to his skin of his face.

"Alright, go ahead and laugh." Maxim growled. Balthazar flopped into a chair at the table opposite him and let all his laughter explode from him.

"You thought – you thought that she - was a boy!" Balthazar howled with laughter as he smacked his fist repeatedly against the table top.

"Oh shut it Balthazar."

"Not on your life." Balthazar sniggered. "I can't believe you didn't recognize her!"

"It's getting dark and she was behind you, more or less." Maxim tried to defend himself to deaf ears as Balthazar once more fell into hopeless laughter.

Maxim crossed his arms across his chest, trying hard not to pout and plotted on how he was going to get his revenge on Balthazar. Turning him into a pig was a fairly tempting idea, if he actually knew how to do that. He'd have to make a point of learning that trick quickly.

"Balthazar, what is the matter with you? I could hear you from my study?" Their Master demanded as he and Veronica walked into the kitchen a few moments later.

"He thought – that Veronica was a - a boy!" Balthazar choked out between his laughter.

"Ah." Merlin replied calmly, though they all saw his lips twitch upwards underneath his beard.

"It was getting dark and she was behind him and – I really am never going to live this down, am I?" Maxim asked his Master.

Merlin just shook his head as his two youngest apprentices once more fell into hopeless giggles.

"Not any time soon, I do wager." Merlin said kindly as he pattered his oldest apprentice's shoulder as the boy buried his face into his hands.

All this just because of trousers, he couldn't believe it!

**A Thousand Years Later (Give or Take a Decade or Two)**

They stood together, once again by each other side, watching the Prime Merlinian fly off into the night on the back of giant, steel eagle with his love laughing as her arms wrapped around his waist.

"Well, that was certainly interesting." Veronica mumbled softly, her arms wrapped around her own love's waist, holding him close to her.

"Hmmm, which part?" Balthazar asked. He couldn't believe she was actually here, with him, finally.

She laughed. Her deep, rich laugh that he had missed so much.

"All of it, I suppose." She admitted, resting her head on his shoulder.

"Hmmm and here was me thinking that you were just talking about the fact that you now know, more or less, that women in this time can wear trousers whenever they want." Balthazar teased. Veronica smacked his shoulder gently with her hand.

"Yes, as interesting and as please as I am that little fact, I was more referring to the rest of the evening."

"Why bother? I never want to think about this evening ever again. The only good part about it was that I have now got you back into my arms and that Dave truly is the Prime Merlinian and Morgana is gone." Balthazar exclaimed as they made their way, slowly towards Balthazar car.

A crowd was beginning to form around Battery Park as Balthazar hopped gingerly into his car, Veronica already inside it, looking at it with curiosity that only she could possess when being as tired as he figure she must be after her millennia struggle with Morgana within the Grimhold.

She smiled at him cheekily as he started to drive away from Battery Park back to Dave's lab.

"Hmmm?" he asked, though he was fairly sure what she was smiling about. She beamed.

"No more wearing these silly things for me." She laughed and he just shook his head, chuckling softly.

"And no will think that you are boy either." He added and they both started laughing again.

_fin_


	3. Shoes

**Author's Note:** This is quite short and is set after the movie, instead set before it which is what I usually write about, but it still basically stars Balthazar and Veronica (!). It also makes a reference to 'Trousers' the fic before this one, so yeah, I am going to try and make these match up with one enough, if that makes sense.  
Anyway, please enjoy and reviews as lovely.

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**3. Shoes**

Veronica looked up startled at the sound of some muttering contently under their breath "Ow. Ow. Ow. Stupid old man shoes!"

She felt a small smile cross her lips as she walked out to the centre of Merlin's circle and watched the Prime Merlinian come limping down the stairs in the his private lab, still muttering under his breath.

They were so much alike! It was so odd that they themselves could not see it, she thought as she continued to watch him, as he continued to mutter and be obvious to her presences.

"You dislike shoes too, do you?" she asked him teasingly, before watching him jump in surprise and felt momentarily guilty that she had not announced her presents earlier.

"Veronica?"

"Yes." She said feeling suddenly rather uncertain. This world was still very strange to her, even after a month of living in it and she wondered if she had offended him somehow.

"Balthazar not here at the moment, is he?" the Prime Merlinian asked quietly almost fugitively after a quick scan of his lab, looking rather sheepish as he did so.

She shook her head.

"No, he went out to the bookstore. He'll be back soon, though."

"But he's not here right now."

"No."

The boy thrust his arms to the air as he hurried over to a stool and pulled off the brown, leather shoes off his feet and let out a sigh of relief as stretched his obviously cramped toes.

Once he got feeling back into his toes, he turned his attention to her.

"Sorry, but what were you saying when I came in? These things were kind of murdering my feet." He smiled sheepishly. "But don't tell Balthazar I said that. He seems to be in love with these shoes."

She chuckled at that.

"Really?"

"Yup." She chuckled even harder at that, causing the Prime Merlinian to cock his head to one side, clearly confused.

"Oh, please forgive me." She giggled.

"No, it's fine. So what were you saying when I came in?"

"Oh, just that you seemed to dislike you shoes as much as Balthazar always disliked his. He hated wearing them. Would happily go barefooted anywhere, if Merlin would let him."

"WHAT! Seriously? Balthazar Blake disliking shoes? No way!" She giggled again at the boy's disbelieving face.

"More disliked wearing them." She corrected.

"And he gives me such a hard time about them, too."

"Who gives who a hard time about what?" The Prime Merlinian let out a startled yelp as he almost toppled off his stool in surprise at Balthazar unexpected voice from the entrance of the Lab.

"What is it with everyone and trying to give me heart attacks today?" the Prime Merlinian demanded once he had straightened himself once again on his stool.

Balthazar just looked at him with mild amusement.

"That just proves that you need to work even harder on your ability to sense Auras."

"But they are so hard to sense in the first place!" the Prime Merlinian complained bitterly.

"Then you need to work harder." Balthazar replied calmly, as he placed his huge bag of books beside her chair and kissed her forehead fondly.

"Are you alright." She simply smiled up at him. His fingers gently brushed down her cheek, his face leaning in closer to hers and…

"Ah geeze! Come on, if I wanted to see that type of thing I would have gone and seen that chick flick that Becky wants to see." The Prime Merlinian complained. "I mean, with Becky. Not by myself of course. With her, as like, on a date. I mean…"

"Dave, circle, now." Balthazar commanded without looking away from her and her amused smile. They both heard him give a huff as he stomped his way to the middle of Merlin's circle.

"Shoes on Dave." Balthazar added.

"Ah come on, those things are killing my feet!" The Prime Merlinian wailed.

Balthazar rolled his eyes at her and she chuckled.

"Dave."

"Fine. But I don't know why I have to wear them when you probably didn't want to wear them when you were, I'm guessing, my age either."

"Actually," Veronica said, leaning around Balthazar who looked quite startled at her doing so, "it took him until he was twenty-five to wear shoes all year round and that was only because Maxim horse stood on his bare foot and broke it in three places. Though, if I remember correctly, you still complained about wearing shoes, even after that happen." She smiled wickedly up at her love who was simply staring down at her with a look she well recognized from childhood from growing up with two boys. She giggled, somewhat nervously. The Prime Merlinian on the other hand looked dumbstruck.

"And you give _me_ a hard time. At least I wear shoes all year round."

"Shoes back in those days were not designed how the ones that we are wearing today are." Balthazar replied calmly. "Now, Dave put the old man shoes back on."

"Fine, but only if Veronica agrees to tells me more about you not liking shoes and getting your foot trodden on by a horse and so on." He chuckled and looked hopefully over to her. She smiled in return and nodded, a sense of calm feeling her.

She wanted to be friends with this boy, this boy who held her beloved Master's blood within him, who had saved her beloved's life, and if telling him stories about hers and the other childhood helped build that friendship then she gladly would.

"Yes and while you're at it, you can throw in that with my dislike of shoes, you avid dislike of dresses." Balthazar added. Veronica's cheek grew slightly red.

"You disliked dresses?" The Prime Merlinian asked puzzled.

"I disliked wearing them."

"So what did you wear instead?"

"Balthazar and Maxim old clothes, that is until I turned fifteen and Merlin forced me to start wearing dresses again, at least in public."

"You got away with wearing boys clothes for five years but I wasn't allowed to go around with bare feet even in summer." Balthazar said, rolling his eyes and shaking his head, muttering "Favourite," under his breath so that only she could hear.

She simply giggled, before happily sitting back and watched her beloved teach (though torment was possibly the closer the word for it) the Prime Merlinian, who is still grumbling about his shoes under his breath.


	4. Life & Death

**Author's Note:** Hi there. I was admittingly a little stuck as to what to write for life. I had so many ideas for it but none seemed fit. Death was easier to write, oddly enough. So I combine 4 and 5 themes together and got this little one-shot. I rather like it, it's different from the others I have written while still being similar. I hope you like it too.  
P.S. I realised only this morning that I kinda spelt 'Incantus' wrong, so I apologize that.

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**4 & 5**

**Life and Death**

"Maxim, HELP!"

He can't move. He can barely breathe. What was happening? Everything had been fine just a few a moments ago, so why was he now filled with such terror and growing dread and guilt.

"Maxim." His ears can hear her cries but they barely register in his brain.

What had he done?

His brother?

His true brother, not one of those useless, arrogant men and boys who were related to him by blood and name, where was his true brother?

_At the bottom of the lake, dead, because you dared him to be better than you!_ A nasty voice at the back on his head whispered, sounding almost gleeful.

"Maxim, please! We have to get him out before he drowns. He's probably unconscious because of his wave crashing down on top of him." She was pulling at his arm, trying to get him to move, to follow her to the lake's edge. To help her find Balthazar!

_She cares more about him than she does about you._ The voice teases. He breaks out of his terrified trace but not because of the words that the voice has spoke, even though they do bother him, but because he feels Veronica's little hand letting go of his wrist and is now waist deep in water, moving frantically further into the lake's cold watery grip.

"Veronica!" he yelled as he charged in after her. He can't lose her too!

"We have to save Balthazar." She screamed back to him before she dives in under the lake's surface. Once he reaches the spot where she dived under, he dives under the surface too.

They both find Balthazar at the bottom of the lake, not moving, eyes closed.

_He's dead! He's dead and it is all my fault_. Maxim cried in his mind as he grabbed Balthazar's right arm as Veronica grabbed his left and they pulled him to the surface.

"We have to get him to land." Veronica gasped. She is remarkably calm now, which he is grateful for because he is far from it.

_Why bother? He already dead!_ He can't help but think, but still, he helps her pull Balthazar to shore.

"He's dead." His voice is a void of emotions as he watches her blankly check Balthazar over for any signs of life.

_He's dead and it is all my fault,_ he thought miserably. _If I hadn't teased him about not being very good at controlling water, he would never have come here and try to create and control waves_.

"Veronica, stop! You can't help him, he's gone." But the girl continues to ignore him as she tips Balthazar head on to its side, opening his mouth, allowing trapped water to flow out on to the sand beside him.

"Veronica…" he trials off as he continued to watch her. She was now kneeling beside Balthazar dead body, her hands pressed over his heart and was pushing down upon it several times before moving to pinch his nose and sealing her mouth over his, blowing hard into his.

"What are you…" once again he allows his words to trail off as she continued to repeat these actions.

_She is so persisted and here I am just standing here, like before when my brother was drowning, being absolutely useless_. But he doesn't move forward. Veronica seems to know exactly what she is doing and he knows better then to try and interrupted her.

She presses down on Balthazar chest for, he doesn't know how many times now, he had lost count after twelve, when a spluttering cough comes from the boy.

Maxim feels his mouth drop in disbelief as he watches his brother rolling onto his side; coughing and spluttering up water, weed and heavens only knows what else came up too.

"You're alive?" Maxim gapped.

"I hurt too much not to be." Balthazar replied groaning as he tries to sit up only to be pushed back down again by Veronica.

"Fool." She muttered angrily under her breath. "You complete and utter fool! Why did you do that? You know that Master doesn't want us to try and control the Elements when he is not around. So why pull such a stunt?"

"Ah, well, um…" Balthazar stuttered as Veronica glares down at him from where she is kneeling beside him.

"Because I dared him to do it." Maxim sighed. "He wouldn't have done it if I hadn't pushed him, but I did, so this is basically all my fault." Both youngsters stared up at him startled, both noting the redness of his cheeks and the odd streams of wetness running down them.

"Did you seriously think I was dead?" Balthazar asked them both teasingly, trying to lighten the dark mood that had befallen them.

"You were dead. I had to give you the Kiss of Life to bring you back from Death's doorway." Veronica growled at him. Balthazar cheeks blazed with heat at her words.

"You what?" he gapped.

"She forced you heart to start beating again while pushing air into you lungs." Maxim explained, shrugging.

"Ah, how?"

"Well, I just…"

"Veronica, he's been through enough today and I think if you tell him exactly how you brought him back to life he might just end up dying on us again from a heart attack."

"I won't." Balthazar started to protest as his cheeks turned even redder at Maxim words.

"Don't you dare!" Veronica growled, "That was my first time giving the Kiss of Life to someone and I'm in no hurry to give it again."

Balthazar fell silent, his head hanging low, his cheeks appearing to be on fire.

"I'm sorry." He mumbled softly.

"Yeah, we know. I am too." Maxim sighed as he flopped down on to sand beside him and after a moments hesitation, he wrapped his arm around the younger boy, his brother.

"I'm sorry too." Veronica whispered as she curled up on Balthazar's other side, her head resting on his lap.

"What in the world are you sorry for?" Maxim asked her, as Balthazar gently stroked her wet hair from her face.

"For not stopping you both, like I usually do."

"Oh yes, you do have something to be sorry about, don't you?" Maxim sighed, "Not stopping us." He shook his head. "You are five and a half years younger than me, three years younger than him and yet you are the one taking care of us. Unbelievable." He sighed.

"I don't mind." She mumbled softly.

"We know." Balthazar replied, taking a deep breath of cool air into his still air starved lungs.

"I'm glad you're not dead." Veronica mumbled after a time. She had one arm wrapped around Balthazar waist while the other stretch across his lap and was holding Maxim hand.

"Me too."

"Same here. It would be such a pain to try and find another sparring partner out here, in the middle of nowhere, that would be somewhat good at it." Maxim added.

"Are you saying I'm getting good at it?" Balthazar asked, sounding hopeful.

"No. I was saying that I don't want to have to teach the basics all over again to someone new. Not that it would make much difference since I'm still teaching you the basics and we've been at it for years!"

"Hey!"

"Hay is what horses eat."

Veronica smiled softly at their easy-going banter. Today had scared them, deeply. They had almost lost one of their trio, and for them there was no worse thing than that.

She clutch more tightly on to her two most beloved people in the world, suddenly afraid that if she should let her fingers slip, for even a moment, they would both disappear and leave her in a very dark place, were no light could reach her. She never wanted that to happen.

She was selfish but she wanted these two to be by her side forever.

She can't survive without them, nor can they survive without her or survive without each other.

That was why she had worked so hard to get Balthazar's heart going again, because she knew that if he did die that he wouldn't be the only one who did.

Maybe they wouldn't die completely like he would have but a large part of them; a large part of their souls would have died along with him. She was selfish, but she couldn't let him die and leave her and Maxim alone in this cruel world. He had to stay and be with them, to live with them and for them, like they did for him.

They couldn't die! She wouldn't let them! She would fight with every last breath in her body to keep them both safe from harm. She would do anything to protect these two beloved people. Even if it killed her… or worse.

These two were her life and she had the oddest feeling that they would also be her death, but she didn't mind because for now at least, they are both save and they are all together and that's all that matters.

* * *

**Author's Note:** 6. Unicorn is up next  
**Update 4/10/10:** I have hopefully fixed up the errors that were in this. Thank you sankage for letting me know about them.


	5. Unicorn

**6. Unicorn**

"Do you think Master would let me…"

"No."

"Why?"

"Because."

"Because why?"

"Because I said so." She fell silent at that and he felt a sigh of relief starting to escape his lips when…

"But why do you say so?"

"Because… Because Balthazar thinks it's a bad idea too."

"Don't bring me into this." A boy with wavy sandy brown hair muttered. He was edging slowly away from his fellow apprentices so as not to be dragged into this particular argument. He didn't like taking sides when it came to these two, his not related by blood older brother and little sister.

"I think Master would let me keep it."

"You know, he probably would."

"You're not helping Balthazar." Balthazar smiled sheepishly at his older brother, who merely rolled his eyes at him before turning back to the ten year old girl he was arguing with.

"Alright, if your heart is so set on keeping it…

"Him."

"What?"

"It's a him. A boy. You said 'it'; well it is actually a him."

"Most him are boys."

"Balthazar! Alright, fine, HIM. Where are you going keep him?"

"In the stables."

"And you don't think people will notice him?"

"He's small."

"He won't always be. Balthazar, please, I'm begging you, help me!" Balthazar let out a small sigh and got up from where he was sitting with a book under a tree and walked over to where the two were standing. Big brown eyes looked up at him pleadingly.

"Veronica…"

"NO!" she wailed, her arms tightening around the creature's neck.

"Veronica," he tried again very gently, "I know that this is hard but we can't keep him."

"Why not?" she pouted up at him. Her big brown eyes demanding an answer to her question.

"Well, for a few reasons really. Firstly, we know his family is just over there and if we take him with us they will be very worried about him, because you know he's a baby and everything. Secondly, if we take him back with us people will see him and well; they'd probably try and steal him from us."

"But we're sorcerers'. We can protect him." She mumbled softly.

"True, but he has a family to protect him and being with us will actually only end up putting him and his family in even more danger than they already now in. Do you understand?"

She nodded slowly, releasing her arms slowly from around the creature's neck.

Balthazar pulled her gently away from it, hugging her close to his form, as he listened to her snuffles as the creature, after a final nuzzle of it soft nose against her hand, trotted off into the dark forest, let out small, high-pitch neighs that were answered by louder more powerful ones.

"See his family loves him." Balthazar mumbled, as he held her closer to him. She nodded dully, her eyes downcast.

"But I love him too." She whispered softly.

"Would it make you feel better if Maxim and I gave you piggybacks rides all the way home?" Balthazar asked her gently.

She thought for a moment in silence before giving a little nodded. With help from Maxim, Veronica was firmly attached to Balthazar's back and they started the long trek home through the forest.

"You didn't have to be so hard on her about it." Balthazar muttered to Maxim once Veronica had fallen asleep against his back.

"Could you just imagine what would have happen if we actually took it - "

"Him."

"Whatever, home with us? Master would throw a fit."

"Actually I think he'd be more impressed then anything else that we found one, along with a whole herd of them here in the forest."

"I suppose."

They fell into a comfortable silence.

"But do you know what is really annoying." Maxim grumbled as the trees started to thin out.

"Hmmm?"

"We've been Master apprentices for over five years in my case and three in yours, and we've never even seen one. And then she here a month and she finds herself a whole herd!"

"I think that if she had asked them, the whole herd would have come back with us too." Balthazar mused.

"And to think she hadn't even known what one was before today." Maxim chuckled.

"Unicorn." A soft, almost wistful sigh came from behind them.

They both looked over their shoulders at the youngest apprentice, who was still sleeping soundly with a small smile on her face.

"Maybe we should ask Master if we can get her a cat." Balthazar suggested. Maxim rolled his eyes at his friend as they walked up the path that leaded towards Merlin's Tower.

Maxim suddenly stopped.

"What?" Balthazar asked, puzzled by his friend worried eyes.

"Do you think us saying that we spent the whole afternoon with a unicorn foal will get us out of trouble with Master because we didn't bring back _any_ of the herbs that he sent us out to get in the first place?"

"Ah…"

"Veronica, wake up! We need you to find your baby Unicorn friend again! Quickly!"


	6. Squirrel

**Author's Note:** So far, this theme was probably the most fun to write for, mainly due to the idea what that came with it. I will admit the idea for this fic did stem a little from Disney 'The Sword in the Stone', with the scene where Merlin turns himself and Author in the squirrels. while that does quite happen like, remembering that scene did help create this idea. And this was so fun to WRITE, lol!

* * *

**7. Squirrel**

"You look like a squirrel!"

"I'm not even going to say what you look like." She replied rudely back. He ignored her jibe as he continued to chuckle up at her.

"Stop laughing this instant Balthazar Blake!" She growled at him, which only made him laugh harder.

"How can I, when you look so ridiculous?"

"You could always go away." She replied hotly.

"And then where would you be?"

"I'd still be in the same place as I am now, but I'd be figuring out a lot quick on how to get myself out of this mess that you and Maxim put me in."

"Well technically…"

"Don't give me technicalities!"

"Do you want a hand… or a paw?" a branch bounces off the top of his head at that ending comment.

"I hate you both."

"Now come on, don't say that. It's not that bad, seriously."

"I have a tail, I'm up a tree and I'm as tall as you forearm. How is that not bad?"

"It's amazing how someone so small can make so much noise." He mused loudly to himself. Another branch fall on his head, hard.

"Ouch! Alright, I'm sorry. I promise we'll find a way to fix this."

"You'd better."

"So just come down and… what?"

"I –I, um, don't…"

"You don't know how to get down?" he guessed and rolled his eyes in disbelief. "Veronica, you're part squirrel! Jump, for goodness sake."

"No thanks to you. And no, I will not jump!"

"Then how do you expect to get down?"

"This is all your fault, so you figure it out."

"I thought you were."

"Not now. Your fault, you fix it."

"Fine." He walked up to the pine tree and grimaced at its height.

"How do you think I feel?" Veronica called down to him. He sighs as he starts to pull himself up.

"I think I'm going to start have a strong disliking to heights… and pines." Balthazar commented as he continued to pull himself up and round the branches of the tree. This would have been so much easier if he were thirteen and not twenty-seven.

"You dislike height? That is most definitely never going to happen." Veronica was grumbling.

"Are you still mad?"

"Your turn me into something that is part squirrel. What do you think?" he groaned.

"I'll take that as a yes. Look, we are sorry about this, you know."

"Yes that is why you are climbing up the tree and Maxim not even around." She replied harshly. He blinked up at her surprised by her tone.

"He's freaking out that you might throw something at him, like you've been doing to me." He replied, trying to keep the peace for once.

"Or he's just ignoring me." She grumbled. _Or that_, he had to agree with her there. But then Maxim was ignoring pretty much everybody at the moment. Except when it came to spell casting and only then does he give one hundred percent attention.

"He's been preoccupied, trying to figure out how to find Merlin's heir and so on."

"And we're not?"

"Well, I'm climbing up a Pine Tree to rescue you, who happen to be part squirrel at this present moment in time."

"This isn't my fault." She complained as he pulled himself on to the branch beside the one she was perched on.

"I know." He soothes as he twists himself around so that he can sit more comfortably on the branch.

"Nice view."

"I'll take notice of it after you've change me back."

"I did mention I am sorry about this, right?"

"Yes, you did. But I'll know that you are truly sorry when you turn me back to normal."

"Ah."

"Balthazar." Her voice has a warning tone in it.

"But you are kind of cute like this." He can't help but grin as he gently pokes at her tail. Her eyes narrow as she glares up at him.

"Alright, fine." He sighed as he cleared his mind and focused on how she normally looks, but the image of her with a tail just won't get out of his head.

"Stop smiling!"

"Sorry."

He tries again and he feels the usual warm sensation of magic working around them.

"Well, that's better." She sighed happily as she stretched her arms above her head.

"No tail, that's a pity." She punches him lightly in the shoulder. He grins back at her innocently and is rather taken a back by just how pretty, no beautiful she looks, with the sun against her back, shining around her like a bright aura.

"What?"

"Ah nothing."

"I'm not growing another tail, am I? Because if I am, I'm pushing you off that branch."

"Getting rather violent now, aren't we?" He teased, but he tightened his grip on his branch all the same.

"I don't take well to being turn into a creature then suddenly winding up in a very tall tree." She replied tartly.

"Technically, you were only turned into part a creature, but I get your point." He added quickly as he noticed her dark glare. "And I am sorry."

She gives a tiny sigh, before doing the last thing he would expect her to do in this sort of situation, but then knowing her as he did, it was, in some ways, exactly what she would do in this sort of situation. She leant over and hugged him tightly, so that he could feel all her loneliness and sadness and she could feel all of his. He felt a small smile twitch on his lips as he wrapped his own arms around her and laid his cheek upon the crown of her head.

They stayed like this until the sun had gone down and they started to worry on how they were going to get down.

"We could always jump." Veronica suggested innocently as Balthazar took in just how high they actually were. He scowled back at her.

"Not funny."

"Maybe if I turned you into a squirrel."

"Oh shush. Come on."

They climbed down the tree with caution, mainly due to Veronica being dressed in on of her Court dresses, which she was grumbling about above him.

"Hate these stupid things!"

"More than being part Squirrel?"

"You do know I am going to hit you when we reach the ground, right?"

"Yes… Miss squirrel."

Another branch falls, with a thud on to his head, but he can't help but laugh about the whole situation. And after a few moments, she was too, so that when they reached the bottom of the tree, they fell into a helpless heap of laughter at its base.

* * *

**Author's Note:** I'm not a hundred per cent sure if this would have happen at the age that I made them in this, but I figured that, if the boys were mucking around this might just happen to Veronica and Balthazar feeling bad about it would go out into the woods to find while Horvath pretends to be busy with something else because he fears Veronica's wrath.  
So I hoped you enjoyed, because this basically had me laughing the whole time I was writing it, so yeah.  
Thank you for reading and reviews are lovely.


	7. Monkey

**Author's Note:** To tell the truth, with this one, I have really no idea where it came from. It just randomly came to me while I was studying, so of course, putting my studying aside I wrote this up instead... yeah, my parents will be thrilled, but they like this movie too, so they can't complain too much...right?  
lol, anyway, Hope you enjoy and yeah.

* * *

**8. Monkey**

"Dave, stop monkeying around."

"Don't you mean 'mucking' around?"

"No, monkeying around."

"Are you trying to imply that I'm some sort of monkey?"

"…"

"Oh, thank you. Thank you very much."

"Well, technically we are related to them."

"Yeah, but…"

"But nothing, get back into the circle Dave and keep practicing."

"But I've been at it all afternoon."

"And you'll be at it all night if you keep up this whining."

"Fine. I'm going. I'm going. See this is me, getting back in the circle."

Balthazar shook his head as he walked over to where Veronica was sitting, looking up at him with mild amusement.

"Yes?"

"Don't you think you are being a little hard on him? That was a fairly impressive lights show." She mumbled softly under her breath to him.

"He's not supposed to be making little orbs of light that can change colour. He is supposed to be trying to create a Plasma bolt, on his own, without feeling stressed out or angry." Balthazar grumbled.

"He's tired. And you're not letting him have any fun with his powers. Merlin always let us have a little fun with our powers, you should let him too."

"He's the Prime Merlinian."

"He's also a boy. He needs to learn to have fun with his magic or he'll never access them to the full extent that we do."

"But he has had fun with his magic, he flooded this whole room and…" he trailed off, slouching further in his chair as he watched Dave try for the umpteenth time to create a Plasma bolt with any sort of power behind it.

"And?" she prodded him, wanting an answer but by the look in her eyes, he figured she had already guessed the answer.

"And he brought mops and brooms and all sorts of other inanimate objects to life." He admitted grouchily. She burst out laughing.

"What's so funny?" Dave called to them confused.

"Nothing. Again!" Balthazar replied, before looking back at Veronica, pouting slightly as she placed a delicate hand over her amused mouth.

"Hmmm, that's sounds familiar."

"Oh, shush, I was fourteen."

"I know and you learnt from that didn't you? That magic can take your command a little too seriously at times."

"So, you are getting at… what exactly?" Balthazar asked sighing, taking her hand in his, playing with her tiny fingers with his large, calloused ones.

"Let him have some fun. Show him some of the fun spells that Master showed us when we were in particularly restless moods, like he is in now."

"How bout you show him all the fun spells and I'll just keep being the evil task master." Veronica rolled her eyes at him.

"Honestly, I think you're more worried about him doing the things that you and Maxim did, then anything else."

"Of course I'm worried about that! The things that Maxim and I did, we were lucky that there were two of us or we'd be completely screwed!" She could hear pain in his voice as he spoke and she gripped his hand more gently as he continued. "Dave hasn't got some one to pull him out of a stupid rug or mirror, or change him back into a human when he gets turned into a pig and..."

"He has us."

"I'm too old to be monkeying around."

Veronica looked at him, dead panned.

"Balthazar, you have a giant eagle flying around the city. You have a car that you change the shape of whenever you feel like it and you use Dave's Tesla Coils against him. How is that anything other than you monkeying around?"

"Fine. But you're still teaching him the fun spells. You don't want him to think I've gone soft, do you?"

Veronica rolled her eyes in disbelief at him.

"You are completely unbelievable. And a tiny bit insane too, from what I hear." He held his fingers apart about an inch.

"Oh, that much insane, well that explains everything." She chuckled, before she turned her attention back to the Prime Merlinian, who was looking thoroughly fed up with everything.

"Dave?"

"Hmmm, what is it now? Oh, um, ah, yes Veronica, um, what is it?" She heard a small snort from beside her at Dave's obvious changes in tones when he realised it was Veronica that had called out to him. Veronica simply smiled at him fondly as she rose from her chair and walked towards Merlin's Circle.

"Would you like to have some fun for a change?" she asked. The boy's eyes positively lit up.

"Really? Like fun as in with my magic?" he asked sounding more energetic than he had all afternoon. She nodded, smiling. They both ignored the exasperated sigh from corner of the lab.

"So, what are we going to do?" Dave asked. He looked close to bouncing up and down on the spot in his excitement to have, for the first time really, something fun to do with his magic.

"I was thinking that we should keep it simple, as you don't have your ring anymore and you and your magic have to work harder to perform as you usually would if you did have your ring. And I'm guessing that you are already rather tired from trying to create Plasma bolts. So simple?" the boy nodded eagerly in agreement.

"So what should we do?" he asked.

"I was thinking about creating those light orbs that you were before and getting them to create shapes."

They hear another amused snort from across the room, but once again ignore it.

"That sounds cool. What shapes?"

"I'm thinking, maybe a Monkey."

"Or a squirrel." Veronica shot a look back in the direction of her beloved, who smiled meekly back at her before returning quickly to his book.

"I'm missing something, aren't I?" Dave asked looking between them, puzzled.

"Yes, you are, but that is one story that you are never, ever going to hear." Balthazar said, stilling looking at his book.

"Why not?"

"Because he knows that I'll push him off something if he does tell it." She said, smiling sweetly.

"Right, um, ok… So a monkey then?"

Balthazar shook his head in mild amusement fifteen minutes later as his apprentice gave a wild whoop before laughing in his own amusement at the monkey, made completely of little orbs of light, ran around his lab. He glanced at Veronica, who only winked knowingly back at him.

Yeah, he was never going to live this one down.


	8. Good

**Author's Note:** I actually had trouble with this one. I actually had to combine another SA fic that I had been playing with earlier with this one to get anything near to what I wanted and liked. It still hasn't turned out completely the way I wanted it too, but for now I think it is the closest to what I want as it is going to get. I'm try again later on, but for now, it is what it is.

* * *

**9. Good**

There was this saying that truly good people could never lie, even to save their own lives. He doesn't remember where he first heard that saying, but it has stuck with him all the same.

The first time he found this saying to be correct was when he was thirteen years old and in the markets and had just found himself having the purse that was filled with his Master's money being pick pocket by a thin, little street brat.

He had half expect the brat to steal the whole purse, but instead it only took three of thirty coins that were in the purse as if feeling guilty for what it was doing. Normally he would have thrown a fit for something like this happening but instead, he struck up a conversation with the brat, instead.

"What do you think you're doing?" He tried to sound impressive and important, but he was only thirteen years old, so the effect never really seemed to work all that well. _Though it seems to be working now_, he thought a little amused. The brown eyes that peered up at him from beneath a large leather work cap were wide and trying to look as innocent as possible. Trying… The little streets brat's face was calm and neutral but the eyes gave away the guilt of what had been done and horror of being caught doing it.

"Nothing." Came the stuttered reply. "I haven't done anything."

"Are you a bad liar or what?" the brown eyes pouted up at him.

"How did you do it anyway?" he asked. He was curious about the child, who couldn't be more than ten years of age. There was just something different about it, something special and those brown eyes were drawing him in, making him even more curious about them.

"Do what? I told you, I haven't done anything wrong." Argued the brown eyed street brat, its voice growing higher and shriller as the more upset it got. He remained completely calm as the child did this. Well, on the outside he appeared to be completely calm, on the inside he was a mess. He didn't want to make the child cry! He was just curious about it.

"Now come now, we've been through this." He started reasonably. "We both know that you are a bad liar. If you can not lie to me, a thirteen year old, how do you expect to be able to lie about this to the authorities?" the brown eyes gulped nervously. "Just give me back the money and I'll let you go, alright. Be a good girl now."

He hoped he had guessed the child's gender right. She wasn't wearing a dress, just a pair of much worn trousers that were too big for her and a shirt and coat basically in the same condition as the trousers. A brown cap covered her head, but wisps of long dark hair were falling out from under it. When he received no protest to his guess he continued "I promise," The brown eyes hesitated as they stared hard up into his own blue grey ones. He met her gaze without shrinking, though it was hard not to and he was beginning to feel an odd sensation within his chest.

His ring on his finger was also giving off an odd sensation, as if it was trying to tell him something important, "I am a man of my word."

The girl suddenly looked thoroughly fed up as she finally gave in to his words and handed back what little money she had taken from the purse that she had somehow managed to steal from him. He had no idea how she had managed that, considering that there were magic wards on the purse that his Master had put on it especially so that something like this could never happen, but it had and…

He looked back hard into those big brown eyes that were still watching him wearily, as if waiting for him to go back on his word.

He was a little insulted by that, but he supposed he really couldn't blame the girl for thinking that he might. From the looks of things, times had been hard on her and he almost regretted having to take the money back from her. He was sure his Master would understand, it had only been three silver coins after all, but…

He sighed heavily.

"How old are you?" he asked her gently. She said nothing, just continued to look at him with those big, soulful brown eyes.

"Come now, you can tell me."

"It is bad luck to tell a sorcerer your age and name." the brown eyes replied softly. He jumped slightly in surprise at her words.

"How did you know?" he stuttered. The girl simply shrugged her thin, little shoulders within her huge brown coat.

"How else would you known that I had stolen from you? You're the first who has ever noticed. Also it was much harder to steal from you than it usually is to steal from the other rich, stuck-up nobles that come around here." She replied calmly, no lies in her eyes as she spoke. There was guilt there though and a great deal of unhappiest about what she had done but she had accepted it as how her life must be lived for her to survive.

He just stared at her, opened mouth, before noting the plain, little ring with small darkish rock on her middle finger of her right hand.

"Where did you get that?" he demanded, almost angrily, causing the girl's brown eyes to grow wide once more and for her to look quite frighten.

"My mother gave it to me." She squeaked, not even bothering to try and lie about the ring. He calmed down a little and rolled his eyes.

What was he doing? Frightening little girls, granted this one had tried (and succeed though he had caught her doing it) to steal from him, but over all, it was still wrong.

"I'm sorry. I'm just…"

"Tired?" the girl asked timidly. He nodded, rubbing his eyes as he looked around the market place. Now where was the place he was supposed to go again?

"Veronica!" a bunch of children ran by them, looking expectedly at the brown eyed girl, but she merely shook her head at them, her eyes still focused on him, as he started turning in a slow circle trying to remember the way to… eh where was it he actually suppose to go again? He couldn't remember.

He groaned.

Merlin was going to have his head for this. Well, if that was the case, he wasn't about to go down by himself.

"Come along, Veronica." He ordered as he stomped back in the direction that he had come, smiling slightly at the startled squeak behind him.

"How do you know my name?" she demanded, almost angrily. He smirked a little.

_Might as well have some fun_, he thought as he swung around to face her with a deadly serious face, exclaiming, "Because I can read minds!"

The girl froze and just stared at him in horror.

He grinned slowly.

"I heard those little rats call out your name." the girl visibly relaxed just a little before once more scowling at him.

"That's not funny." She muttered, but she surprised him by actually falling into step with him. He walked slower than he usually did, trying to be considerate to the girl's much shorter legs, but she kept pace with him easily.

"Yes it is and you're a bad liar remember." She just grinned at him and the two continued to walk side by side through the village to the hut that was being temporarily his and his master's and fellow apprentices home.

Even though she had stolen from him on their first meeting and that he knew that she had stolen from many others before him, all nobles though, he knew that she was a good person.

He had understood, along with his Master and Maxim to some extent; that she had stolen so that her family and others had money to buy what they could to help them survive the harsh winter. She never stole more than five coins and those coins had always been silver, never gold.

He doesn't know why exactly that and her inability to lie made him trust her so and know that she was as good as good could be, he just did.

He supposed the saying that truly good people could never lie even to save their own lives had helped him to decided that she was good on their first meeting. But over the years that he knew as he watched her grow, as he learnt new things with her, just being with her and seeing that she really couldn't lie even about the smallest of things, that she really was the purest, most courageous good person he was ever likely to know.

* * *

The second time he found that this saying to be truly correct was over a thousand and something years after the first time, in the year 2000. Once again it is with a ten year, but this time, a boy.

A boy with messy brown hair and with a red school bag that had his name on the front of it.

A boy who seemed to be determined to destroy his whole shop because he had come in there simply to hunt down a note that had somehow flown in.

A boy with big brown eyes, brown eyes that just would not let him to lie.

He can't help himself but grin as he says "You're a bad liar, Dave. That's good." The boy looked up at him wide brown eyes, trying to look innocent, but the eyes gave away his emotions, gave away his lie. Only truly good people can never lie and this boy, like her, can not lie.

He knows that this is one, the Prime Merlinian, even before the dragon wakes itself up due to the boy's presence and wrapped itself around his forefinger, all because of that one saying; that truly good people could never lie, even to save their own lives.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Well, what did you think?  
I am open to Critism, but no Flames, ok.  
Thank you for reading and 10. Evil will be up sometime tomorrow probably, that one is being fun to write, though I've had to try several times with that to get it right too.


	9. Evil

**Author's Note: **Hi there. Sorry about the late update, I've been busy studying, working... cross-stitching, lol. Also I've been having a bit of trouble thinking up what to write for theme 11. Nose and theme 12. Ear. I have a sort of reasonable idea what to write for 11, but 12 I'm still stuck for ideas. If you have any ideas, I'm open to suggestions.

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**10. Evil**

"What is it?"

"Something that, I pray, that none of you will ever have to use in your life times. Something that I pray will never have to be used, but sadly I doubt that will be the case with all the evil in this world."

"But what is it Master?" Merlin looked upon each one of his apprentices' curious faces, wondering if this was really the right time to be telling them.

His eldest apprentice, Maxim Horvath, sixteen years old, was old enough to learn about some of the dark truths of the world that he would undoubtedly speak of, but the younger ones?

He looked to his second apprentice; Balthazar with his calm, earnest grey-blue eyes that are far too old for his fourteen year old face and then to Veronica. So young she is at only eleven years of age, but so wise and so eager to learn.

No, today was the day that he would tell them at least some of the truths that he has been trying to protect them from.

"This, my young apprentices, is a Grimhold." He holds the small black doll out in front of him so that the three youngsters could get a better look at it from where they were all seating around his arm chair by the great roaring fire in his study.

His youngest two look at it, perplex, rolling the word over their tongues. His eldest is simply frowning, waiting for his Master to continue.

"What does it do?" Veronica asked very quietly. She was looking at the doll with more interest than she probably should, almost as if she had seen it before and it frightened her. _As it should_, he thought grimly, _but she will never have anything to do with it, not if I can help it_.

"It, essentially, traps people within itself. It is usually used as a way of ridding the world of evil sorcerer's without killing them."

"Why go to the bother of trapping them when you could simply cut their heads off?" Maxim grumbles, fingering his blue gem that was placed at the hilt of his sword.

"Because some, even when they have faced some of the most horrific of evils, do not want nor wish for blood to be on their hands. They want to remain pure and good. They do not believe killing is the way to solve their problems." He notes that Maxim's cheeks have turned slightly red and he reaches over to ruffle the boy's dark hair.

"So, you have to have done something truly evil for someone to have a reason to seal you inside it?" Balthazar asks his grey-blue eyes far too serious for one so young.

"Yes."

"Does it only work on those who are evil?" Veronica asks in the same soft voice as before.

"To tell all truths, little one, I do not know, but if it is any consolation, I have heard of no innocents being trapped within a Grimhold, but," he hesitated for a moment as he looked into those big brown eyes, "I suppose that it could possibly happen, if the circumstances were truly terrible." She nods her head slowly, her hair falling over her face as if trying to use it to block the black doll from view.

"Now, listen to me very carefully, all of you," he said as he leant forward in his chair to smack Maxim over the back of his head to regain the boy's attention away from his sword, which he had started to polish with the edge of his sleeve, obviously thinking of duels that he hoped he one day be in, "this Doll is to be only used when, and only when, you are facing some of the most powerful, evil beings that you are to ever come across, where there is no chance of the fight being in your favour. You must promise me that if you do need to use this that you only do in the most extreme circumstances. For you see, once you have locked a sorcerer into a Grimhold, that Grimhold must never leave your side or the Grimhold may be stolen from you and the sorcerer release to wreck havoc upon the world once more."

"Now, I think that is enough for this evening and well time for you all to be in bed." Merlin said, ignoring the grumpy sigh from his eldest apprentice, the still eager to learn more glance from his second and the frighten look that his youngest was giving him underneath her long, heavy dark hair.

He patted her shoulder kindly and said in a gentle voice. "You need not worry about this, little one; you are far to kind and good of heart to end up in this wretched thing. Now off to bed and sleep well, we will be busy tomorrow."

"We're always busy." Maxim pointed out as he herded the two youngest out of the study. Merlin chuckled softly at that, before turning his attention back to the Grimhold and sighed heavily; picking it up and contemplated where to keep the wretched thing until the need fir it arose.

_**Later that Night**_

"Balthazar? Are you awake?"

"Well, if I wasn't before, I am now! What do you want?" Veronica shifted unhappily in the doorway of his room. She had forgotten how much of grouch he could be when he was woken abruptly.

"Um… I, um."

"Veronica, I'm tired. What is it?" he heard a soft snuffled and rolled over in his bed, making out Veronica small, dim outline in the dark. "Veronica? Are - are you crying? Don't cry. I didn't mean to snap at you, I really didn't. I…" he trailed off as he swung himself out of bed and walked over to the small girl, whose face was hidden in her hands as she softly sobbed.

"What's wrong, hmmm? Bad dream?" he asked her kindly. She nodded her head in her hands.

"Alright, come on. In you get." She let out a small squeak as he picked her up around the waist as if she was a very small child and carried her the small distance to his bed, and dumping her gently on it.

"Balthazar?"

"You can stay here tonight, but just don't tell Maxim or neither of us will ever hear the end of it, alright?" he said as he closed the door again, so as to retain what little warmth was in the room. He blew into his hands and created a tiny little fire ball, warm and didn't burn you if you touched it, he let it float over his bed. Normally this wasn't something Merlin allowed within the Tower, but Balthazar was sure that their Master would understand this one time. He hopped back into bed rubbing his cold feet together to get blood once more circulating in them.

"I'm sorry I woke you." Veronica mumbled. She was buried so deep in the bedding that Balthazar hadn't been exactly sure where she was exactly until her bright eyes had peered gratefully at him when he had gotten back into bed.

"It's alright. You had a bad dream, didn't you?" she nodded.

"Want to talk about it?" he wouldn't push her, because when pushed she usually shut down completely. _Like us_, he thought thinking of how Maxim, Merlin and himself reacted whenever people tried to pry in on their personal business.

"It was about the Grimhold." She mumbled.

Well, that surprised him. He certainly wasn't expecting that to be the cause of her nightmare. She didn't have many nightmares and the few she did have were about monsters they had faced and defeated with Merlin and she would later dreamed about the '_what if's_' of the situations, such as what if they hadn't moved fast enough one way and got hurt by a claw and so on.

"The Grimhold will never harm you Veronica. You heard what Master said; you are far too good and kind to ever do anything so terrible that you are sentence to spend eternity in that evil thing."

"But in my dream, my dreams." She corrected and he frowned_. She had had more than one?_ "I am being trapped inside of it."

"Oh and what did you do that was so terrible that you should be trapped inside of it?" he teased, "Did you steal from some cranky old sorcerer and couldn't lie that you didn't? Don't worry, we'd break you out pretty quick if that ever happen."

"I don't know," She mumbled, clearly taking no notice of what he was saying, "but I wasn't myself in the dreams and I always wake up unable to breath and…" she was getting worked up again, tears beginning to flow down her pale cheeks. He gently brushed the tears away with a finger.

"Shush calm down. It was only a dream, right."

"But it's the same one for the last week, now." She whispered.

"Veronica, it is just a dream. Just a dream. They come and they go. Some last one night, others last a few nights. Just dreams, they can't hurt you."

"You're in it." She mumbles softly, causing to stop his rambling. "At least I think it's you."

"Huh? What do you mean?"

"You look older, like you're an adult, but your eyes are filled with such hurt and pain." She sighs sadly. She looked him in the eye nervously as if trying to decide whether or not to go on.

"And you're the one that locks me in the Grimhold."

"AS IF!" He yelled. Veronica waved her hands at him to be quiet as they heard loud grunt from down the corridor.

"As if I'd ever do that!" He growled in fury, rather hurt now. "Do you really think so low of me as to think I would do something like that to you?"

"Of course not." She whispered, looking close to tears again. "It's just what happens in my dream. I can't make any sense out of what is going on in it, only that I've dreamt it for the last five days and tonight it was all the more clearer after seeing that horrid doll." Tears rolled slowly down her cheeks as she spoke and he felt immediately bad. He wrapped his arms around her little form, hugging her close to him.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It doesn't sound like a very nice dream. I'm sorry for yelling and being angry at you, so please, don't cry. I promise that dream won't ever come true. I promise." She nodded and they both curled up in his bed, sleep claiming them quickly and neither woke again that night.

* * *

Neither remembered this moment again, until it was too late, when everything that they had fought for appeared to be lost forever.

Their eyes met with silent horror, the memory of that night coming back to them both as if it had happen only yesterday.

Veronica tired to smile at him, to convey all her feeling for him and that she forgave for what he was about to have to do before Morgana took complete control over her.

_Please_, she thought, begging with her eyes for him to hurry. His grey-blue eyes were filled with grief and such pain, but he nodded to her silent wish and just as she felt Morgana's evil beginning to take her over, he had the evil doll out and she could feel herself, Morgana with her, leaving the world behind them as the Doll pulled them inside of it.

_I love you, Balthazar_. She called to him silently and she thought she felt a little ray of warmth before the darkness and evil of the Grimhold over took her and her mind pulled within its self.

Balthazar stared at the Doll in horror as he took in the portraits painted upon its sides.

"Veronica." He whispered as he squeezed his eyes shut. Taking a few deep breaths, he tucked the evil thing inside his long coat's large pocket and he walked from the ruin that had been his life before evil had destroyed it.

Well then, he'd just have to return the favour.

* * *

**Author's Note: **Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed. If you have any ideas of themes Nose and Ear, or any others', I am very open to them and I would love to hear them.  
Thanks once again for reading and reviews are much appreciated.


	10. Nose

**Author's Note:** I had trouble thinking of an idea for this, and because I had trouble thinking of what to write, the final product ended up quite long, as per usual for me, lol. It seems that whatever theme I have trouble writing for ends up being a long ficlet, but oh well. It's a little on the odd side (well, I think so), but overall I quite like it and I hope you do too.

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**11. Nose**

"You cheated!"

"I most certainly did not."

Balthazar fought back a sigh, rubbing his temple as he tried to concentrate on reading about a rather difficult and advance spell in his Incantus, trying to ignore what was going on a little way from where he sat. It wasn't working and he could feel his own frustration beginning to rise.

"You must certainly did cheat."

"Pray tell how exactly I cheated?"

How long were they going to go at it?

He heard a small disgruntled sigh beside him.

"Bored?"

"I wasn't until now. Why do they keep claiming that Maxim is cheating? From what I could tell, he's been beating them all fair and square." Veronica whispered back to him softly as she stretched her short legs out in front of her on the soft lush green grass that grew under the tree that they were sitting under, escaping the summer's sun.

The tree that they were sitting under was position on the side of a training arena where a group of men were standing looking very rowdy and irritated.

"It's because he's been beating them fair and square that they say he's cheating." Balthazar explained. Or tried to. Veronica simply looked even more confused by his explanation. So he tried again.

"They're Knights'."

"So?"

"So? They're Knights! Granted they've only gained that position, but they are still being beaten by a sixteen year old, with no real official sword play training, who also happens to be a sorcerer. In their mind, he's cheating, using magic or something to help him win."

"But he isn't."

"Yes, we know. And they know that too, probably, but they can't accept that. He is still an untrained sixteen year old beating them at what is suppose to be their area of expertise."

"Oh." She mumbled, eyeing the group nervously. As was he, wondering when he should step in and be the voice of reason. Though, that probably wouldn't help the situation, being as he was even younger than Maxim.

He started rubbing his temple again. It wasn't that he didn't think that Maxim couldn't hold his own against that arrogant lot of pigs, it was just; he didn't want Maxim to feel that he had to face them on his own. He wanted him to know that he, Balthazar had his back, like he always had his.

"I say you cheated."

"And I say that I did not." Maxim was growling back hotly. He looked furious but both Balthazar and Veronica could see the hurt that was forming in his dark eyes.

It wasn't often that he had a chance to duel with others that had some skill with the blade and he always jumped at the opportunity to duel them, to test and improve his own skills. To have this usually golden opportunity thrown back in to his face by being called a cheater, when he wasn't cheating, just doing his very best, must be shattering for him.

The two youngsters continued to watch in silence as the argument got more and more heated. From where she sat beside him, he could see her biting heavily on her lip, the worry growing in her big brown eyes.

"This is getting ridiculous." Balthazar finally muttered to her as he picked himself off the grass, handing her his Incantus, before moving towards the group to stand just a little behind Maxim.

"What do you wanted you little brat?" one of the knights demanded of him. Balthazar moved carefully to Maxim side, noting the older boy's face had gone almost white with fury. He took a deep breath.

"Only that it is time for us to return to the Tower." He spoke to Maxim, pointedly ignoring the older boys, "Master is most likely wondering where we are." He took hold of Maxim arm to try and pull him away from the nasty group and back to where Veronica was now standing, clutching all three Incantus in pocket form, still biting heavily on her lip.

He thought that he might just have succeed in his task of getting Maxim away from the group, when both boys heard a warning shriek from Veronica, only to find that it had come too late.

Balthazar didn't even manage a cry of pain when the powerful blow hit him in the back of his head, sending him straight to the ground. He heard of yell of fury from Maxim, along with laughter and a nasty voice speaking far too loudly, in his pounding head's opinion. "Show more respect for you betters, boy!"

"Betters?" He heard Maxim roar and groaned.

_Oh no, here we go,_ he thought still groaning as he heard several yelps of pain from the surrounding boys. _Gotta get up and help him_.

He wasn't entirely sure how he actually managed to get to his feet once more, his head was pounding and the world was spinning some, but his desire to help Maxim was obviously helping his pain resilience. And despite his age and his rather stringy physique, he managed to land some rather well aim punches at his and Maxim attackers, granted they landed a great many on him as well, them being tall, stronger and trained in this sort of thing.

It was when he felt his nose break; causing the pounding in his to triple in strength did he come to full acknowledgement that there really was no way in hell that he and Maxim could win against these arrogant pigs. He had known this from the start, of course, but he had thought that the arrogant pigs would at least fight fair and would know when to stop when it was obvious that they had won. But they weren't stopping and Balthazar was beginning to worry that they might not, not until both he and Maxim were dead.

Panic filled him. Magic!

Magic would save them, but try as he might, no spell came to him. No useful ones at least. He could think up ones that involved trapping someone in mirror and others like that, but none that would help in the situation that he and Maxim were in now, because annoyingly enough there was no mirror around.

_They should have one out here_, he thought almost giggling as he imagine a foot long, silver framed mirror hanging from the tree he and Veronica had been sitting under.

_Veronica?_

Panic once again filled him.

Where was she?

He glanced, which was a very stupid thing he found out a moment later, at the tree where she had been standing under previously, but found that she was gone.

He felt another blow land on to head, sending him to dirt ground once more, giving him the impression, for a moment, that his nose had been smashed right back into his facial structure.

_This is it_, he thought glumly, as out of the corner of his eye he made out a boot coming to stand right next to his face_. I'm going to have my skull smashed in… or out? Or…_ his mind went rambling off without him, his eyes focusing only on the boot that was swinging back, readying itself to smash into his face.

_Should I close my eyes or…_ he thought pattern trailed off when he noticed that boot staggered and that there was an odd yelping noise coming from somewhere above.

"Get this thing off me!"

He wasn't sure what the 'thing' was, but he hoped it did a bit off damage and that it'd protect Veronica, where ever she was.

Veronica!

He had to find her!

Groaning and gasping a little in pain at his swirling head he tried to get to his feet, only to find that if he did, he would only end up falling down again or throwing up or both which seemed likely. Groaning, he flopped back on to the dirt. He could hear all sorts of odd noises around him, furious yelling and running feet and other odd things he could not place the sound for them with a name.

"WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?" that noise on the other hand he could name. Merlin, he groaned, they were in for it now!

"They started it." A knight yelled and Balthzar heard Maxim yell in protest, though his voice sounded rather thick and nasally. _Broken nose for him too_, Balthazar thought grimly.

"I don't care who started it! I'll finish it, that's for sure." Another voice was bellowing. "And put the girl down!"

At that his head shot up off the ground, though it protested loudly against this action, and looked around him.

Barely any of the original ten knights were standing, actually only two were still on their feet, just. One, the leader of the pack, was in a head lock with Maxim, fighting venomously against it even with the Sword Master striding furiously towards them, Merlin at his side. The other knight was looking sheepish, or rather badger-ish, sporting two black eyes. He was standing beside a messy haired child, with blood pouring down her front.

Veronica!

For the second time that day, he somehow managed to get to his feet, even with the world spinning around him, and staggered over to her, clumsily taking her face in his grumpy, blood splattered hands, brushing her now rather dirty hair away so as he could inspect her face.

A rather impressive black eye peered back at him and she had a broken nose as well. He gave a little growl of fury at that.

How dare they! How dare they hit a child! A girl child no less!

Obviously, he wasn't the only one who was thinking along these lines.

"How dare you attack a child! A girl child! Have you no shame, no honour at all?" the Sword Master was roaring.

"She came in and…" one of the fallen knights started but was cut off.

"I don't care! You do not hit a child! No matter what the circumstance! Do I make myself clear?"

Balthazar glanced down at Veronica again, who was looking up at him worriedly.

"You look worse than I do." She mumbled, as she gently reached up and touched his cheek.

"For not doing much, this is what I get as rewarded." He replied thickly. Blood was flowing heavily from his nose and he was feeling light headed. He felt a pair of small, albeit strong arms wrap themselves around his waist, supporting his weight against a small body.

"What do you mean you didn't do much?" Maxim grumbled as he came to stand with them, now obviously bored of hearing the lecture that the Sword Master was giving the knights. "You took more than half of them out."

"No, I didn't."

"Yes, you did." His fellow apprentices said together, nodding their heads enthusiastically, though stopping quickly, as they both grasp their own aching heads.

"You did. Honestly, you did. I was busy with Sir Sore Loser over there for most of the fight and you basically took on the rest of them by yourself." Maxim shrugged, though there was an almost a proud look in his brown eyes.

"But Veronica…" Balthazar started, but Veronica cut him off, shaking her head.

"When I came in, I thought that things were going down hill for both of you, but as soon as I joined the fighting Balthazar, you picked right back up again and well, didn't stop until that final punch to your face." She reached up and gently touched his aching face again, her cool little fingers easing the pain somewhat.

"I didn't… I thought I wasn't… I didn't think."

"I think that's why you fought like you did, you weren't thinking, you were acting on instinct and so, you kicked their asses." Maxim chuckled, but stopped short, wincing as he clasped a hand to his bruising jaw.

"Yes, it was a very impressive display, though I missed most of it." A deep voice spoke out behind them. All three apprentices' cringed as their Master moved to come and stand in front of them.

He looked them all up and down before shaking his head.

"My three apprentices." He said, raising a hand to rub his temple as he closed his eyes wearily.

"Master, I can explain…" Maxim started weakly, but was stopped by Merlin holding out the hand that wore his dragon ring.

"I have not finish Maxim. My three apprentices," his opened once more and all three youngsters were surprise to see that his brown eyes were twinkling, "have the three most impressive broken noses that I think I have ever seen in all my long years on this Earth." He smiled fondly down at them.

"Eh?"

"Now," he said, ignoring his apprentices startled, gapping stares, "I think it is high time that we go back to our Tower. Maybe we should even leave for a time, to allow this whole little argument to blow itself out without you three adding more fuel to the fire by merely being present at court. Come along now." He motion for his three apprentices to follow him, ignoring the stares that were following them from courtiers that were looking at them with hanging mouths and disbelieving eyes.

"I can't believe we beat them." Maxim was whispering excitedly. "And without magic, too."

"We did?" Balthazar asked, completely bewildered. "I thought that we were losing. I mean, the last time I went down I thought I was goner."

"Balthazar, the last time you went down, the fight was already more or less over, thanks to you and the adults were coming to break up what little was left."

"But, I was sure that…" Balthazar mumbled.

"Shhhh, Balthazar." Veronica soothed, as she tighten her grip on his waist to keep him from falling. He felt Maxim move closer to his side, grabbing his arm to wrap it around his neck. Balthazar smiled, albeit somewhat lopsidedly, at his fellow apprentices for their kindness and help.

"How long was the fight?" he asked curiously as their Tower came into view.

"Maybe five minutes." Maxim offered, glancing at Veronica for conformation. She nodded.

"About that, yes."

"Really, felt longer?"

"You did get hit in the head a few times." Veronica soothed.

"Yeah, by both fists and the ground!"

"Oh, hush Maxim." Veronica grumbled.

"I'm not knocking him." Maxim defended, "I'm admiring the fact that no matter how many times he took a beating, he severed them right back. Where on earth did you learn to fight like you did back there?"

"I have no idea and my head and my nose are just wishing that I had just stayed out of the stupid thing." He groaned.

"If it is any consolation, my nose is protesting bitterly against the whole thing too." Maxim offered.

"Good, I hope it gives you a great amount of grief tonight." Balthazar grumbled.

"My nose hurts too." Veronica mumbled, more to herself than to her fellow apprentices, though they both heard and looked at her worriedly.

"Speaking of which, where did you learn to fight like that?" Maxim demanded. Balthazar felt her shrug beside him.

"I grew up in a small country town, I have older brothers and I watch you two. You just pick up on stuff like that."

"Wonderful, both of you can fight brilliantly with hand-to-hand combat and I'm utterly useless at it." Maxim grumbled.

"I'm sure you're not." Balthazar started to protest, but was stopped by Veronica's giggles.

"No, really, Balthazar, he isn't. He's dangerous, yes, but that's because he was just throwing punches everywhere and anywhere. You at least were landing them." She laughed.

"And suffering because of it." Balthazar groaned.

"I think that the three of you, along with you noses, should survive." Merlin said as he ushered them into the Tower. He was shaking his head again, still obviously amused.

"Is us having broken noses amusing, Master?" Veronica asked confused.

"No, not really, little one. What I am finding amusing is the fact that all three of you have broken noses. You have bruises all over your faces, but in different spots, but all of three of you have broken noses." He chuckled for a moment before, sobering. "Go and wash up and then come to my study. I think it is high time to teach the three of you to heal broken bones and so on. Go on now."

"He has such an odd sense of humour, Master does." Maxim muttered once he was sure their Master was truly gone. He's fellow apprentices nodded their heads slowly in agreement.

"Though you have to admit," As the three head to the bathing rooms, "all three of us having broken noses is rather amusing."

"Speak for yourself, Horvath." Balthazar and Veronica groaned as servants came running up to the three, starting to fuss over them, muttering 'poor little things' before ushering them all to their warm baths.

* * *

**Author's Note: **Ok, a bit off hand, but while I've been writing these little ficlets, I've been thinking of a possible sequels to the movie and I was wondering, since Dave is the Prime Merlinian does that mean he has to go and find King Arthur's reincarnate now? Because isn't Arthur, supposedly suppose to be reborn once more, to be the once and future king and bring England back into a time of peace? I don't know, I'm a bit rusty on my Arthurian legends (My father is so unimpressed, lol). The sequel could be about Dave having to hunt down the Prime Arthurian... Yeah, I know I'm thinking way too much into this, my parents are getting a little tired of my obession with this movie, but I can't help it, lol.  
Anyway, thanks for reading and reviews are much appreciated.


	11. Ear

**Author's Note:** Hey everyone. This one actually goes with Nose, a little. Basically this happens like three days after the events in Nose happened.  
I hope you enjoy.

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**12. Ear**

"Ah, do I really want to know what you two have done now?" Veronica asked cautiously as she took in the scene before her.

"Probably not." She heard Balthazar grumble from where he was half hidden behind a huge cooking pot, scrubbing its inside vigorously.

"It's wasn't _all_ our fault." Maxim added defensively from where he was standing by a huge tub of soapy hot water, washing smaller pots and pans.

"No, actually, I really think that it is this time." Balthazar replied, sounding particularly grumpy, unusual for him. Being grumpy wasn't really something he often did.

Generally, when something went wrong or they got into trouble because of something or other, he would just put his head down and get on with the task at hand. Then he'd get over whatever had gone wrong and try again. Never did he get grumpy over something.

Well, maybe not never, the only times Veronica really ever saw him get grumpy, besides being woken up at odd hours, was when…

Veronica glanced sideways at Maxim, eyebrow raised and questioning. She might only be eleven years of age but she knew that she had both boys basically wrapped around her pinkie. Normally she wouldn't abuse this power, but today…

Maxim fidgeted unhappily at her unwavering gaze before finally caving.

"It was all Sir Sore Losers fault." He said shrugging, ignoring Balthazar's loud groan. Veronica blinked at him in disbelief.

"You picked a fight with Sir Boris again? After what happen three days ago with us all getting broken noses and being punished for that fight, you go and get yourself into another one with him?"

"We didn't fight him." Balthazar defended dully.

"Then why are you down here washing out all the cooking pots and pans?" Veronica demanded. Her hands were now placed on her hips, her eyes narrowed as she looked between the two boys.

"We were just teaching him a lesson."

"A lesson?"

"That went a little… ah" Maxim glanced over to Balthazar for help.

"Wrong." Balthazar supplied, still sounding grumpy.

"Wrong? How wrong? Is he hurt?" she couldn't believe these two!

"Do you really think that if he had been hurt, we'd be down here cleaning pots? Master would have thrown us into the moat if he had been."

"So what went wrong?"

"Just the spell." Maxim said shrugging. They both heard an annoyed huff from Balthazar direction.

"Just the _SPELL_? You tried to place a spell on him? I'm surprised Master hasn't thrown the pair of you into the moat!"

"It wasn't a bad one, just one to teach him a lesson." Maxim shrugged again.

"Which went wrong."

"Yes, just a little." Maxim said, as a little snigger escaped his lips.

"You cast a spell on him. That is not funny, Maxim." Veronica complained with great distress.

"It wasn't a bad spell, Veronica, we swear." Balthazar said over the top of his pot. "We just got it a little wrong, that's all." He looked grumpy again as he said that and went back to vigorously scrubbing.

"What spell did you try to cast on him?"

"Well-ah, um." Maxim glanced to Balthazar who shrugged.

"Might as well tell the whole story Maxim. Master will most likely tell her about it later any way as a lesson on what NOT to do when hexing someone." Balthazar grumbled.

"Oh stop being such a grump! So we got the spell a little wrong, the end result was still rather satisfying." Maxim said, grinning.

"The end result being?" Veronica asked.

"Donkey ears." Both boys replied calmly. Maxim was practically glowing with satisfaction and smugness while Balthazar looked mildly pleased.

"Donkey ears?" she couldn't help the squeak in her voice.

"Well, you see we actually wanted to give him a Pig's tail, because he is such a pig and so on, but we must of got some of the wording wrong and ended up giving him Donkey ears instead." Veronica stared between them in silent disbelief, before a small giggle escaped her lips.

"She's laughing, we're forgiven." Maxim told Balthazar in cheerful triumphant as Veronica's giggles grew ever louder and louder.

"No-no, you two are not." She gasped out between giggles. "But, really? Donkey ears?"

"Yes."

"They suited him too." Balthazar said, chuckling a little himself.

"Better than if we had actually managed to give him a Pig's tail, him being an ass and all. You have to admit Balthazar; this mess up wasn't such a bad thing." Maxim laughed.

"I suppose not." Balthazar agreed slowly.

"You're only disappointed you got the spell wrong, aren't you?" Veronica asked him, shaking her head as he nodded his sheepishly in reply. "Honestly, Donkey ears."

"You should have seen it! It was brilliant!" Maxim laughed before he went into full details of the whole encounter, going over the part where Sir Boris received his donkey ears with great enthusiasm as to make sure he left out no important details.

When he was done, all three were clutching their sides, giggling so hard that when their Master came to see what was all the noise about, he didn't even bother to tell them off about not finishing their punishment for it gladden his heart greatly to see them so light-hearted and joyful.

* * *

Balthazar had no idea why he was remembering that moment now, but he was and he couldn't help but feel the familiar ache from the wound that Maxim betrayal had created rip open a little.

_Why do I remember those moments at times like theses?_ He moaned, dragging himself to his feet after he had been hit in the chest by one of Maxim – Horvath's fire balls. Somewhere in the smoking room he could hear Horvath groaning from a plasma bolt hitting him in the chest.

_This is ridiculous; neither of us are going to win this fight in the state that we're in_, he thought before groaning. Well there went his chance of killing him today. He cringed at 'kill' and made to leave.

He was on his feet already and Maxim sounded like he would be on his in just a few moments, better to leave while the room was still shrouded in smoke and dust.

But before he left though, he couldn't help but call back to Maxim.

"Come after the Grimhold again in next decade and I'll give you Donkey ears AND a Pig's tail. Do you understand?"

"Finally figured out how to do that spell, have you?" He heard Maxim call back, sounding more than a little winded. He felt a small, a very small smile grace his lips.

"Well of course. What do you take me for?"

"An obsessive, persisted Bastard who has to get every spell he comes across right."

"Exactly. So, see you in a decade then?"

"Yes, if it means I will not have to go about with Donkey ears and a Pig's tail."

"You and your bloody sense of fashion."

"Well, it beats yours. Or lack of."

"Are we actually having a civil conversation? You must be hurt."

"Yes, your plasma bolt actually seems to have been effective for once, instead of just blowing up people's things."

"Well, whatever works. Anyway, see you in a decade. You never know, Donkey ears might be the latest fashion by then."

"Balthazar leave now or I seriously will rethink about this agreement."

"Alright then… Sir Donkey Ears."

He leapt from out one of the windows of the room before Horvath could possibly blast him with fire. Though he somewhat doubt that he would have.

Things had been rather quiet around the world of late. There were no greatly powerful sorcerer's walking around, no one really willing to join up with either Balthazar or Horvath.

So the two immortal sorcerer's were now finding themselves often to be quite bored and with nothing to do. This generally meant that instead of trying to stay out each other's way, they had been of late, deliberately placing themselves in the other's path. Which would then generally caused one of these rather stupid fights to break out.

The fights were generally over nothing, just them being bored and needing someone of considerable power to vent at and at that present moment in time, the only people with considerable power were each other.

So, Balthazar figured that despite his threat of giving him donkey ears and a pig's tail if he came near him within the next decade, he would most likely be seeing Horvath sometime again within the next month.

Well, it was something to look forward to. He had always wanted to see what Horvath would look like with donkey ears.

He felt another grin begin to form on his lips and for the first time in a very long while, he found himself chuckling at the image that his brain had created of his former best friend slash older brother with donkey ears.

* * *

**Author's Note:** As you can probably tell, I wrote this out of pure boredom and the need for something light-hearted after a day of studying Science and being extremely disappointed in the fact that all the cinema's in my city have STOPPED SHOWING SORCERER'S APPRENTICE! They're still all playing bloody Avatar, the Last Airbender (I'm a fan of the show, I love the show, but the movie was a HUGE let down for me. I mean, the special effects were decent, but Uung? How could they get Aang's name wrong? Didn't they watch the TV series at all?l). Sorcerer's Apprentice is so much better than Avatar and most of the other movies that are still currently showing... 'sigh'. I just wanted to see it again, lol.  
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed and reviews are much loved.


	12. Potato

**Author's Note:** I had quite a bit of fun writing this one. I love writing dialogue and ywah, I just had fun writing. I've been studying for my exams pretty hard and this is really my only fun outlet that I can get at the moment so yeah.

Hope you enjoy and yeah, please review.

* * *

**13. Potato**

"I not am eating that."

"Why? What's wrong with it? It's just a potato."

"_That_ is _not_ a potato."

"Yes, it is. This is a potato."

"Potatoes are not brown or bumpy."

"Yes, they are. When they have come straight from the ground they are. It only looks like it does now because it hasn't been washed or cut up yet.

"It'll be fine to eat, Maxim, once we've cleaned it up a bit."

"I'm still not eating it."

"Maxim."

"I'm sure it tastes exactly like the potatoes back home taste." Balthazar said a little louder over the rising argument between his two fellow apprentices, both of whom were scowling at each other. He fought back a small sigh and wondered if their Master had known or at least suspected that something like this would happen when he left them this morning, all by themselves in the middle of a forest, in hut that he used occasionally as a place of sanctuary, though this time it was _they_ who were going to be using it, not he.

He had gone off somewhere deeper into the forest, to do something that his apprentices were to know nothing about.

They had no idea how long he would be gone for and since he hadn't left them with any food, they were now standing in his very old, very over-grown vegetable patch, where Veronica was on her hands and knees, digging up vegetables that had not yet rotted or been dug up already by other forest creatures.

Balthazar was more or less fine with the idea of having to scrounge for his food. He wasn't thrilled by the idea, but he trusted Veronica on knowing which plants they could eat and what ones they could not.

Maxim on the other hand was by no means thrilled by these causes of events and had up until now gone into a silent sulk, which the other two had decided to more or less leave him be in until they had some food to convince with him that all would be well and that they were not about to starve to death.

However, the sight of the oddly shaped potato, along with the other vegetables Veronica had found in her digging, were not convincing him at all that all would be well. In fact they convincing him even less.

"Once I've cooked it and the rest of this and we have some meat, you'll think that we're right back home again. You won't notice the difference."

"I bet that I will."

"Well then, that is your problem isn't it." Veronica grumbled, clearly fed up with him. Balthazar couldn't really blame her.

She had lived all her life having to grow and hunt for her own food and if times were hard; as they had been when they had first met her, her family often had gone for days without eating.

He and Maxim had never been faced with this problem; they had always had full bellies and had never had to worry about when their next meal would be. And the few times that they had come out with Merlin into the forest, he had always remained with them and they had always packed a great deal of food with them.

Why Merlin hadn't just done the same with them this time, he did not understand. Maybe they were meant to learn something from this?

He glanced between his two fellow apprentices and sighed heavily. Whatever they were meant to be learning, it was going to be difficult to figure out with one of them sulking and the other completely fed up with the one sulking.

Actually, if he didn't know better, he might have even thought that Veronica was crying. Her eyes were puffy and she was looking at the ground with an intense gaze, even though it was clear that she had dug up everything that they could possibly eat, which was really very little, up.

He crouched down beside her and asked.

"So what are we going to cook?"

She looked up at him doubtfully and he noted that she had been indeed crying or at least a few tears had fallen, but she was clearly over her tears as she answered his question.

"You can cook?"

He laughed sheepishly and shook his head, somewhat shamefaced.

"No, not really. I can make tea, but that's about it." Veronica shook her thick mass of hair in disbelief.

"I guess that I'll just have to teach you then, won't I?" he nodded his head vigorously, eager to please her, because the sad look had not quite left her dark eyes.

"You can cook?" Maxim asked. Clearly he too had noted the puffiness of her eyes and was feeling the guilt of most likely being the cause for their puffiness.

Veronica nodded her head calmly.

"Quite well, at least according to everyone who ever stayed with my Grandmother and I."

Maxim sighed heavily as his head sank low, as if he were in deep thought.

"Alright, fine, I'll eat it if you're going to be cooking it." He muttered softly.

"Really?" Both younger apprentices stared up at him in disbelief.

"Yes and no, I'm not possessed!" the youngest looked up at him sceptically, causing him to groan.

"Why is that your immediate thought whenever I do something that is slightly out of my character?"

"Because you so rarely ever do anything that is ever slightly out of your character." Balthazar teased lightly, ducking the sharp blow that Maxim made towards his head.

"But you really will eat it, won't you Maxim? You really will eat my cooking?" Veronica asked, starting to beam with happiness that came so easily to her and was always so infectious for them whenever they were in her presence.

"Ah, yes. I said I would and so I will." It looked as if he would have said more, but was unable to as Veronica had picked herself up off the ground and had practically thrown herself at him, quite knocking the wind out of him as she hugged him tightly around the waist, causing him to go bright red, while Balthazar rolled around on the ground laughing at his older not related by blood brother's face.

"Shut it, Balthazar." Maxim grumbled, looking quite close to dying of embarrassment at this sudden display of affection being direct at him. He patted Veronica's dark head awkwardly, though there was an obvious look of deep fondness in his dark eyes.

"So, what are we going to have?" Balthazar asked when Veronica had finally let go off Maxim and the three of them were now picking up the vegetables that Veronica had found and were placing them carefully into their arms. Balthazar noticed that when Maxim picked up a potato, he still stared at it with distain, but was careful to keep that look off his face whenever Veronica happened to look his way.

"Stew."

"Stew?" both boys groaned.

"Oh hush, it won't be like Master's. There are some herbs back by the hut which I can use to give it some flavour. It's a pity we don't have any meat, but it is too late to go out hunting now. We'll have to do that tomorrow, but tonight we'll have vegetable stew."

"Anyone else thinking 'ew'?" Balthazar groaned to Maxim, who sniggered softly, but stopped quickly as they both noted that Veronica was scowling darkly at them.

"Do you want to eat tonight or not?" she asked coolly. The two boys nodded vigorously just as both their stomach grumbled.

They both smiled innocently at her as she rolled her eyes, shaking her head as she gently pushed the hut's door open.

Before the two boys, Maxim nudged Balthazar arm, muttering.

"This still doesn't look like a potato to me."

* * *

**Author's Note:** So yeah, this fic probably takes place about a month after Theme 12. Ear, and coming Themes Stew, Meat and probably Vegetarian will be set within this time frame too. The apprentices in my time frame are about; Maxim is about 16, Balthazar is 14 and Veronica is 11 and seems to be the most mature at of all of them. Well the saying about girls maturing faster than boys seems to be running true here, lol.  
So yeah, hope you enjoyed and hopefully 14 Stew will be up soon.


	13. Stew

**Author's Note:** Lol, this is rather random, but I like it and I like writing about fun little moments that I can picture these three having together when they were kids.  
On a completely random and different note, one of my little girl ferrets' gave birht to four babies this monday. Hehehe, they are soo cute! Though we are kinda groaning too because now we've gone back up to owning 19 ferrets all up, so yeah, slight groan, but overall we're really, really pleased. And I'm basically estatic, lol.

* * *

**14. Stew**

"Oh what do you know, it is a potato." Maxim laughed as his two fellow apprentices smacked their heads against the solid wooden table that they were currently working at; cleaning, washing and cutting up the vegetables and herbs that Veronica had collected.

"Well, that wasn't very smart now, was it?" Maxim teased as the other two groaned, rubbing their foreheads gently.

"Oh, shut it. Ow." Balthazar groaned, as he gave his forehead a final rub before showing Veronica his chopped up carrots that he had cut up on a board. With a nod of approval from her, he took the board over to a large steaming pot that was standing over the fire in the fireplace and carefully slid the carrots off the board and into its bubbling waters.

"I'm glad that Master at least left us with some meat and salt." Balthazar said as he came back to the table and flopped down onto the bench beside Maxim, who was still cutting up the potatoes.

"And some bread." Veronica added, as she went to stir the pot. Both boys looked at her in surprise.

"He did?"

"We possibly should have looked more thoroughly through the bags that he left with us before we started thinking that he had left us here to starve." She shrugged.

"Right. How much?"

"Not much, just a loaf. Won't last more than a day or so." She sighed heavily.

"So we're still faced with the same problem as we earlier thought." Maxim grumbled as he handed Veronica the board with freshly cut potatoes on it, which she quickly popped into the pot along with a few herbs.

"No we're not. We have this, which should probably last us a few days at least. And we are in a forest, meaning that there is food here, if you know where to look and how to hunt. Also there is a stream near by which means we have easy access to water and I know how to fish." Veronica soothed, as she placed the top of the pot on to it before coming and sitting down with the two boys as they waited for their dinner to stew.

"That's going to take awhile to cook, isn't it?" Balthazar asked, as his stomach gave another rumble of hunger.

"If you can't wait for it to completely stew, it can be soup." Veronica said shrugging her little shoulders lightly.

After a moments thought, she cut off three slices of bread from the loaf that she had found in a saddlebag earlier and handed two slices to the boys, larger slices, while she chopped absently on the crust of the bread.

"Why do you think he's doing this for?" Maxim asked after a time of simply sitting and staring at the fire cooking their dinner inside the pot.

"Maybe we're supposed to be learning something from all this." Balthazar suggested, looking around the small hut thoughtfully.

It was only a one room hut that was extremely cramped with all the things that Merlin had left behind in it over the many years that he had visited it.

There was bits and pieces of everything strewn around the hut, but there was a bright side inside the hut, that bright being that there was a rather large bookcase, that took up a whole wall of the hut and it was practically overflowing with books, most of which he had not read yet and where still in reasonable condition.

"Like?" Maxim demanded, breaking through his trail of thought. He shrugged before grinning.

"You're the eldest, Maxim, you figure it out." Veronica let out a small giggle, while Balthazar fought to keep himself out of head lock and avoid one of Maxim infamous head knuckling, laughing at Maxim failed attempts to grab him.

"Alright, alright, calm down you too." Veronica giggled, smiling fondly at the two as they started to chase each other around the confide space of the interior of the hut.

"Why?" Maxim demanded. His dark eyes were focus purely on Balthazar laughing form that was bouncing around on the opposite side of the table to him, grinning in his annoying way.

He made to run around to Balthazar side of the table, only to find that Balthazar had already come gone around to the side that he had just left.

He groaned heavily, before grinning slyly at his not related by blood younger brother, whose own grin dropped a little at the sight of his.

_This could quite possibly go on for the rest of the evening, but at least it past the time_, he thought as he made to lunge around the table again to grab Balthazar, who once more bolted to the opposite side, chuckling cheekily as he did so.

Veronica sat close to the fire, giggling as she watched the boys continually chase each other around the wooden table, throwing the odd teasing remark at each other.

"You know, the stew is almost ready." She called loudly over their pounding feet against the wooden floor boards.

"In a minute." Both boys replied, to fix on what the other might be plotting to do to care that what they had been bugging her about all evening was now ready to be eaten.

She rolled her eyes to the high heavens and groaned. _Boys!_

"FOOD!" she yelled again in vain before giving up and instead decided to server herself and let the two fools go at it.

_It's almost as bad as when they are fencing_, she grumbled mentally as she put a large spoonful of stew into her mouth. _Oh well, at least this tastes good._

She grinned and happily dug into her stew while the boys kept going at it.

"Alright, alright. It's a draw." Maxim finally groaned as he flopped on to the bench gasping for breath.

"You can win or lose in… whatever it was you were doing?" Veronica asked from her little spot by the fire, an empty bowl in her lap.

"Well, yes, kind of." Balthazar said, fighting to get air into his lungs as he pressed his head against the wooden table top.

Veronica simply shook her head and rose slowly to her feet.

"Do you want some food now?" she asked, rolling her eyes as both boys immediately reacted eagerly to the word. Boys!

"Here, but be careful, it is hot." She warned the two, as she filled their eager awaiting bowls full with rather nice smelling stew.

_Its probably the best one I've ever made and I was scrounging for the ingredients_, she thought feeling quite proud of herself, though she could help but feel a little anxious as to whether or not the boys would like it or not. If they didn't, well tough, they were still going to eat anyway. She wasn't going to have them starve when there was food around but her ego would defiantly receive a painful blow.

"Yes, Mother." Both boys replied cheekily, before ducking their heads quickly at her reproachful gaze as they went back to the table to eat their stew.

"Veronica." Balthazar said after a few mouthfuls of her stew. Veronica looked up from the table top, where she had been concentrating extremely hard upon the grain of timber, trying to find a pattern in them so as to not keep glancing worriedly at the two boys and wondering whether or not they liked the stew.

"Yes." She squeaked. He grinned at her in amusement and Maxim sniggered into his stew.

"This is really good." He praised, grinning even more broadly as he watched her cheeks turn a lovely red colour.

"Really?"

"Well, he's eating it like there is no tomorrow to come," he ignored Maxim glare at that as he continued on calmly, "Maybe we should get you to cook sometime when we're back at Master Tower."

"It certainly beats anything the cooks have ever cooked for us." Maxim agreed, grimacing as he added, "And Master's cooking." All three grimaced at the thought of their Master's less then desirable meals.

"So, you really like it?" Veronica asked softly. Maxim raised a dark eyebrow at her.

"Do you think I would be eating and asking if I can have seconds if I didn't like it?" He asked. Veronica shook her head quickly before nodding her permission that he was allowed to have some more.

As he got up, he paused, groaning a little.

"What?" both fellow apprentices asked in concern.

"Oh, nothing much. I just realized how soft I've gotten."

"Huh?"

"I'm asking an eleven year old if I can have seconds." He sighed heavily, shaking his dark head before proceeding to get his second bowl of stew.

After a moments thought, Balthazar looked sheepishly at Veronica, asking "Can I have seconds too?"

Blinking a little in surprise, she nodded her consent, she too realizing how odd it really was that she, the youngest of the three, was more or less in charge, at least of the food.

"Yes, but remember we need to keep that for as long as we can, just in case we can't find enough food for all of us tomorrow." Both boys nodded and filled their bowls to only half way before eagerly digging in once more.

"Pigs." Veronica muttered fondly at them. They simply smiled innocently back at her before happily finishing off their stew.

* * *

**Author's Note:** I think I'm writing way too many and too much cute moments between these three, but I can't help it. It's so easy to do... It's kinda scary, but oh well, you guys seem to like them, but would you like darker moments between them? Let me know.  
Thanks for reading and reviews are deeply appreciated


	14. Meat

**Author's Note:** Hi.  
Well this theme is probably the longest that I've written for and Maxim kinda suffers in it. Hmmm, everytime (which is once before) I make him central character of a theme, he seems to suffer in it. He suffered in Themes Life & Death and he's going to suffer in this one, but I'll let you read about that.

* * *

**15. Meat**

"You know there is a defiant upside with Master not being around." Balthazar said brightly as he stretched his arms above his head, welcoming the warm summer sun upon his face.

"Because Master isn't around to scold you about not having your shoes on?" Veronica asked as she stepped out of the hut to stand beside him, her feet, he noted with a tad of amusement, were equally as bare as his.

"Balthazar, put some shoes on." They both cringed at Maxim voice from behind them.

"Oh, please, Maxim. They cramp my feet and they look…" he let his words trailed off, at a lost on how to describe the accused things

"Old?" Veronica supplied helpfully.

"That too."

"I'm wearing them." Maxim growled warning. Both younger fellow apprentices looked up at him innocently.

"Yeah, but you're the eldest, meaning you're going to get old first."

"Why you…" he growled before he noticed that Veronica's feet were also bare.

"Veronica."

"Yes?" she replied, smiling sweetly up at him. He rolled his eyes to the high heavens, groaning. It was times like these in which he really did feel like the most responsible one present.

"You've been a bad influence on her." He grumbled at Balthazar, who simply laughed. "Be it on your heads if you step on something and it goes straight through your feet." He said louder as he started stomping off into the surrounding forest, the two youngest chasing after him with considerably softer foot falls. But he ignored that, what did he care if he was being too loud, he was annoyed at the pair of them. Actually he did care, but he was too annoyed to stop his heavy foot falls.

"Maxim."

"What?"

"If you don't stop stomping, we're never going to catch anything." Veronica said softly as she pattered quietly along beside him as Balthazar ran soundlessly ahead of them, a bow and a quiver of arrows strapped to his back. Maxim didn't know why the younger boy was running for.

_Probably just wants to_, he figured remembering that Balthazar always liked to get to wherever he was going quickly, making him the fastest walker out of all of them and the even faster runner.

Sighing a little, he heeded Veronica words and started to walk more gently upon the soft floor of the forest.

"Do you think there are any Unicorns in this forest?" Veronica asked after a time of simply just walking. They were making their way in the direction that they thought the river that ran through forest was in. They could hear it more clearly now then when they had started out on their adventure, but it still sounded to be a significant walk away.

"Maybe." He said, shrugging. He noted Veronica's slight pout and continued quickly on, "We'll have a better look around for them after we found some food, alright?" she nodded and smiled her brilliant smile up at him, causing him to smile his own little smile in return.

He was glad that she had decided to stay with him instead of running off after Balthazar. The two of them generally did that, leaving him behind and though he would never admit it to anyone, not even to himself, but it hurt him deeply by their unintentional abandonment of him.

He almost jumped when he felt Veronica's small hand slide into his, holding it tightly and starting to swinging their arms back and forth, humming softly under her breath. He glanced at her in surprise, taken aback a little by how young and vulnerable she looked in the dim forest light.

It was sometimes hard to remember that she was only eleven years of age when she was acting like the more mature one of all three of them, like she had last night and yesterday afternoon, with taking care of making dinner and being the reasonable one with the whole potato affair.

He hung his head a little, feeling now rather stupid for that particular fight with her. The three didn't normally fight; it was a rare thing in fact. Even rarer was for Veronica to be involved in a fight and with him.

Oh she and Balthazar fought over books and such, who was reading what book at what time and whose turn it was to read the newest book/s that had come to the Tower.

But fights between himself and Veronica were rarely heard of, but when they did happen they were usually over the most stupid and ridiculous things in the world. Like over whether or not it was potato or not.

He sighed again; he really was never going to live that one down.

"Maxim?" he felt a small squeeze on his hand and glanced down into her concerned brown eyes.

"I'm fine. Just thinking, you know me." He smiled reassuringly down at her and squeezed her little hand back before once more looking in front of him, scanning for Balthazar who had now disappeared ahead of them and for any sign of danger.

"Where did the stupid fool disappeared off to?" he growled as the two of them finally came to the river to discover that Balthazar was no where in sight down either side of the river's banks. "I told him not to go too far ahead and to wait if he got here first." He cursed Balthazar softly, before glancing down at Veronica again, noting that she was eying the river with a calculating eye.

"Don't even think about it. It's too wide, too deep and by the looks of it, the current is strong in this section. Heavens, it'd be just my luck if that fool has fallen in and drowned himself." His eyes flickered over the racing water, feeling a swell of dread in his heart at the thought of Balthazar drowning.

It was unlikely, but there was a fallen tree hanging over the river, going completely over to the other side, and knowing Balthazar as he did, he just knew that the boy would have gone across the tree once he came across it.

The problem was that its trunk wasn't very wide and the spray of the raging river made the bark slippery. One slip and… and he really did not want to think any further on that particular thought and instead called out Balthazar's name.

Roared it out more like, adding a number of curses and death threats that he would happily go through with if the idiotic boy didn't get come back in the next minute. He didn't reappear, causing Maxim to curse a little more.

"I'm going to kill him." He growled in fury as they walked to stand by the trunk of the fallen tree.

"You don't know if he has actually gone across." Veronica reminded him gently.

"It's Balthazar." Maxim growled, "Of course, he's gone across! Cautious as he may be with all other aspects in life, when it comes to heights! He throws caution to the wind! Even with a height as low as this one, but it's over a raging river, so the appeal is still probably there." He was grumbling and stalling he knew, but he really did not want to go across that tree trunk.

To him it was no better than a rickety old bridge about to collapse into one of those seemingly bottomless canyons that were so popular in folk tales. And unlike he's not related by blood younger brother, he really wasn't all that fond of heights, not that the height of this was particularly bothering him at the moment, no more the raging rive beneath it was, which he calculated from the speed that it was flowing at, once you went under it, you weren't going to come back up until you reached the next lake or whatever the next large body of was and by that time, you would most likely be thoroughly drowned.

"We could just wait here for him to come back." Veronica suggested gently, obviously noting his paleness.

"And do what exactly to pass the time?" he asked, still not taking his eyes from the trunk.

"I can teach you how to fish." She offered brightly. He thought for a moment as his eyes wandered from the trunk to the raging water below it.

"Would fish be swimming in that?" he asked.

"Probably not at the moment, but remember there was a big rainstorm a few nights back which is why the river is so big and raging. Once its calm down it won't be so dangerous to be around and the fish will come back."

"So why teach me to fish if there are no fish around."

"Practice." She offered.

He bit down on his tongue, hard, trying to decide what he wanted to do.

What he really wanted to do was hunt down Balthazar and beat him to a pulp for worrying them both for running off _AND_ for not coming back when he was called, but that meant, probably, leaving Veronica behind.

She was fast, yes, but her legs were much, much shorter than his and despite her best efforts to keep up with him, she would in the end just slow him down on his mission to throttle Balthazar. But he didn't want to leave her behind, by herself. As much as he knew that she could handle herself, she was still very young and reasonable new to the Craft and she was after all his responsibility to look after and care for.

"Alright, teach me." She beamed at him brightly, but he could see the nervous edge to her eyes as she showed him how to make a fishing rod from a long branch and how to properly tie the twine that she had brought with them on to the branch. She had brought with them a hook and sinker for them to use and she showed him how to tie them on and how to cast his line.

"You really know what you are talking about, don't you." He smiled at her as he successfully cast his line into the raging water. She smiled and nodded, before glancing up at the sun, worriedly.

"He's been gone for hours." She whispered.

"Yes, I know."

"Maybe we should head back." She mumbled, glancing back the way they had come and stiffen. Maxim stared at her in puzzlement.

_What is the matter with her? And what is that strange noise? Sounded like, growling_… he swung around and yelped.

Wolves!

A huge pack of the beasts! Over twenty of them all up!

"Oh you must be jesting me!" He groaned. As if the day hasn't been bad another with Balthazar doing his disappearing act, wait… he took in the wolves again and felt sick.

_What if he hasn't fallen in to the river at all! What if he's been eaten by wolves?_ He could feel panic begin to take over his brain, but he forced it back as he placed his left arm slowly around Veronica's front, pushing her gently and ever so slowly back and behind him as he started to walk backwards towards the fallen tree trunk, muttering under his breath as he did so, "When I give the signal, you get over that trunk, alright, get on to the other side of the bank. No arguing." He growled as he heard Veronica start to protest. "Veronica." She fell silent and together they walked the last few feet backwards to the fallen trunk, Maxim drawing his blue gem hilted sword as they did so, wishing as he did, that he could create Plasma Bolts like Balthazar.

They would be of great use in this situation. Fire was too dangerous to use in this confine space, with the trees growing so thickly on either side of the river, and he hadn't mastered any other element and none of his usual attack spells would work in this situation. Plasma Bolts were the only things that would work against such a large number of wolves and without setting the whole place of fire.

"Balthazar," he growled as he held his sword out in front of them, "where are you?"

They had reached the fallen tree trunk and Veronica, at the slight nod of Maxim head as the signal, was already clambering up and on it, her legs hanging on either side of it, her little feet being sprayed with river water.

_Thank goodness she's wearing trouser and not a dress_, he thought as he swung his sword warningly at a wolf who had come just an inch too close within his comfort space.

_This is bad! This is really, really bad_! He thought as the wolves started to move closer, forming a tight semi-circle around the tree trunk. The only way to get away was to get up and on the fallen trunk, which could result in falling off and a death by drowning or cracking ones head open on a rock, depending on which event came first.

So the choices were death by wolves' teeth or death by raging river?

He would take the river option, if only he could climb the trunk of the tree, which he could not for that would mean turning his back on the advancing wolves and well he was not, oddly enough, overly keen on that thought either.

"Maxim." Veronica whispered frantically.

"I know. I know." He groaned.

A wolf, a young male he figured suddenly lunged at him, snapping it jaws excitedly as it sensed his fear.

"Maxim!"

Maxim yelped in pain as the wolf's sharp teeth sank into his left arm. He swung his sword heavily down upon the creature's head, with so much force that he decapitated the creature, its head and body falling heavily on to the river's rocky shore.

The surrounding wolves howled at their lose, their bright eyes glaring at him in fury, wanting their revenge for killing their pack mate but his sword was making them all the more nervous about attacking him.

"Go! Go on, get! You are not going to be eating us today!" He yelled, waving his sword through the air purposefully, trying to ward them off. They took the hint and moved back, but not much, just a little more out of reach of his glimmering sword.

_They're going to wait until I get tired or when it becomes dark before they attack. They're going to kill me and there is really nothing I can do about it_. He gulped nervously, fear rippling through him. He really didn't want to die. He liked his life, hard as it was at times, but overall it was a life that was worth living and he'd be damned if he didn't give it all he had before he let those filthy beast take him down. And if Veronica survived, well that was worth dying for, right?

"Veronica, go to the other side of the river ok."

"No." he could hear movement behind and above his head. Tilting his head back slightly he saw that she, to his horror, was moving back towards him along the trunk, her eyes filled with fierce determination.

"Veronica, no."

She ignored him and sat just beside his head on the trunk, her little hand on his shoulder, squeezing it reassuringly.

"I think this could end really, really badly." He admitted to her softly as he gave his sword another firm swing as a few over-confident youngest moved a little closer to them. They yelped and growled as they moved back amongst their pack members'.

"I don't understand. It's summer; they should have plenty of food to eat." She whispered weakly back to him.

"Ha, could have fooled me." He grumbled softly.

"It's getting dark."

"I know." He whispered, trying to not think about it. With darkness his death would come and he was in no hurry for that.

"Balthazar." Veronica whispered.

She was scared, terrified, and rightly so. He remembered that she had never been a big fan of wolves. He and Balthazar had never asked her why but they had a fair idea what might have happen to make her dislike them so greatly.

Darkness fell and as soon as it did, another wolf threw itself at him. This one was wiser than the first and knew how to dodge Maxim sword.

Muttering under his breath to make his sword the sharpest thing in the whole forest he lashed madly at the snarling creature, who was dancing just out o reach of his blade.

It was maddening!

"Maxim, don't! He's trying to get you move away from the trunk so that they can surround and overpower you! Don't let him trick you." Maxim felt helpless. He was getting tired already from trying to stab the evil thing and knew that the moment he showed weakness they would swarm him, like bees to honey.

Overhead, Veronica to the best of her abilities was throwing small rocks at the wolves, summoning them from the river's bank, into her palm before shotting them at the wolves, with some rather satisfying results.

The wolves howled loudly as rocks pelted their summer coats and their eyes and nose, causing small, but deep wounds to appear.

_Now, why didn't we think of that earlier?_ He wondered vaguely, his head feeling heavy, his wounded arm aching. _Because it's only distracting them from you momentarily, not making them go away_. A voice grumbled at the back of his head in reply.

"MAXIM!" her scream of warning and terror ripped through his thoughts and he threw his sword forward without thinking, but there was no need. The wolf was oddly enough dead at his feet with a huge hole going straight though it body. Not a sword made hole, but a…

A Plasma bolt came striking through the trees before them, the bolt going through three wolves before disappearing in the thin air over the river.

"Remind me to never, ever make him angry." Maxim mumbled weakly up to Veronica as she vainly tried to pull him up on to the tree trunk beside her. Now that the wolves were thoroughly distracted by this sudden and deadly attack, he happily scrambled up on to the trunk beside her, both of them moving to its middle, so that directly below them was the raging river.

More Plasma bolts shoot towards the remaining wolves causing them to howl with fury and fear as they scrambled over each other to get away from the dangerous bolts of energy.

As soon as they were well scattered, the two apprentice saw the third running full speed towards them. In the dim light from the moon, they could see that his grey-blue eyes were wide with fear and desperation.

"Are you alright?" he came to a skidding halt by the tree trunk, scrambling up it to where his fellow apprentices sat.

"Maxim's arm…" Veronica moved her hand around his form, a small globe of light floating there so that both he and Balthazar could see the wound that the young wolf inflicted on his arm.

"Ow…" he mumbled, as a new wave of pain shot through his arm. He had completely forgotten about his arm with all the excitement that Balthazar Plasma bolts had caused. Balthazar…

"WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN?" Maxim roared at the young boy, who cringed visibly but remained calm as he and Veronica help Maxim down from the tree trunk on to solid ground, where he swayed dangerously, before the other two grabbed him, holding him upright.

"Well?" he demanded before noting the long scratch on the right side of Balthazar's head, half hidden by his wavy sandy, brown hair.

"What happen to your head?" he growled.

Balthazar grinned weakly up at him, making Maxim aware of how unfocused his grey-blue eyes really were.

_And he was shotting Plasma bolts at us, well at the wolves, with a concussion?_ Maxim groaned, though he had to admire the younger boy's aim. He had been impressed before by his aiming in the dark and at such a distance but with a concussion as well? Oh, yes, he was never making this boy angry.

"Well?"

"I tripped." Balthazar replied weakly, shamed-faced, as they sat and rested for a moment by the fallen tree, not even wanting to think about the trip back to the hut, in the dark and all by themselves.

"Because you were running ahead of us like a fool? Without shoes on?" Maxim asked tiredly.

"Basically. I tripped on a root and I hit my head on another root, I guess. Knocked myself out. And when I came too it was getting dark and I didn't know where you two were and I could hear wolves howling and…" he trailed off, one hand pressed to his wounded head, the other still keeping a firm grip on Maxim, supporting most of the older boys weight.

They both fell silent before they noticed that Veronica was no longer with them.

Panic for he didn't know how many times today filled him, as he and Balthazar looked madly around them, only to find that she was standing over the fallen wolves carcasses, chewing on her bottom lip thoughtfully.

"Veronica, get away from them." Maxim ordered weakly.

"We can use the meat for food." Veronica replied calmly back. Both boys cringed at the thought, both of them feeling a little ill by it.

"No – just want to get back." Both of them muttered. Veronica looked them over before nodding.

"Wolf meat doesn't taste all that wonderful anyway." She mumbled as she moved to Maxim other side and together the three started making the long trip back to the hut.

"As soon as Master comes back, I'm getting him to teach us defensive spells. Wards and shields, all the defensive spells he knows." Maxim muttered firmly, feeling the other two nodded their agreement on either side of him.

They made it make to hut safely, all three amazed that did not lose themselves within the dark forest.

"Lock the door firmly Balthazar and cover the windows with, well…" Veronica trailed off as she waved her hand vaguely at the odds and pops that were inside the hut; silently thanking that the hut was made more out of stone then it was wood.

He nodded quickly and did as she asked as she settled Maxim down on the rugs and blankets and cushions that they had been used as bedding the night before.

"Once again, you're the one looking after us." Maxim mumbled softly as she gently helped him be probed up on the stone wall beside the fireplace. With an almost lazy flicked of his right hand, he set the hearth ablaze, before his hand return to gripping tightly on to his sword, which he had not let go off since the wolves had first appeared.

Veronica, using the light of the fire and her own globe of light, checked over his wounds, healing as much of them as her magical strength would allow, which was a substantial amount, for when Maxim looked back at his arm again there was now only soft pink scars where the deep bite marks had been.

"I do not know if I can heal the wounds completely, at least not tonight, I can not." She mumbled softly, her brown eyes apologetic.

"That's alright. They feel much better then they did before, which is the main point." He mumbled, smiling gently at her. She let out a small little sob, before throwing her small arms around him and carefully squeezing his stiff, sore form.

"Two hugs in two days for you." Balthazar commented softly as he moved to sit on the bedding, his eyes downcast.

"I'm sorry." He whispered softly. Maxim and Veronica glanced at him blankly, so he continued, "If I hadn't run off ahead and tripped. If I had just stayed with both of you, this might never have happen."

He wasn't crying, crying was something he rarely did, but he sounded close, he sounded broken, his head hanging in failure.

"It wasn't your fault that this happen." Maxim replied gently, "Yes, granted it was stupid of you to run ahead like you did and we might not have ended up in the situation if you hadn't." Balthazar's shoulders trembled, but he nodded his head in agreement with what was being spoken. "But we were all stupid," Maxim continued calmly, causing his fellow apprentices to look at him in surprised. "We don't know the area. We just went charging in, looking for food that we didn't really need yet, because we still have Veronica's wonderful stew and you know what, I saw rabbit hop by this morning, so it wasn't like we had to go in as deep as we did. Also, remember that creek we passed on the way here, that's only a few minute walk away. We were being stupid today and luckily we've survived to learn the lesson that was needed to be learnt here, so that next time we won't be doing anything like this again." He felt rather worn out after his speech, the need for sleep and food now becoming the sole things he cared about at that moment.

As if reading his thought, and sometimes he really had to wonder if she could, Veronica handed him some stew and a slice of bread, handing the same thing to the still rather glum Balthazar, before finally taking a bowl and a slice herself.

They ate in silence, huddled close together for warmth and comfort from each other, before all of them curled up in the bedding, Veronica in between the two boys. Maxim after much grumbling took the place beside the fire, while Balthazar lay closest to the door, something he had argued to do, growing more determine to do so after Veronica had healed his head and he had gotten some food into him.

They let the fire burn, spreading a warm, cosy light around the hut, making them feel safe and protected.

"Balthazar." Maxim mumbled, once he was sure that Veronica had finally fallen asleep, curled up in a tight ball on her side, facing away from him. He knew that Balthazar wouldn't be sleep however, brooding most likely over the day's event.

"I'm not mad at you; you do know that, yes?"

"Yes, I know, but you should be." the younger boy whispered. "You and Veronica almost got k…" he trailed off, the thought too horrible for him to continue.

"Yes, well, you saved the day, didn't you though?" Maxim replied gently, reaching over Veronica to squeeze the younger boy's shoulder. Balthazar rolled over, on to his side to face Maxim, his eyes still filled with shame.

"No, you did." Balthazar replied softly, "you fought them off for ages before I came along. You protected Veronica and yourself. I just came in at the end to finish them off." Maxim snorted in disbelief at the younger boy's words.

The boy didn't want credit for his achievement; Maxim understood that with a sigh. _He's never going to allow himself to live this one down_, Maxim thought with a slight groan as he stared into those determined blue-grey orbs.

"How bout you both saved the day." Veronica mumbled unexpectedly between them. Her eyes were closed but her hands moved to grasp one of each of their hands and squeezed them tightly. "If neither of you had saved the day we would be meat right about now."

"Ew." Balthazar groaned at the mental image

"Thank you Veronica, very much for that lovely mental image." Maxim sighed, noting her cheeky grin and rolled his eyes.

The two boys curled up on their sides, facing inwards at the young girl between them grasping their hand tightly in hers, determined to never let them go.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Hehehe, so what did you think. Even though I made him suffer a bit in this, I wanted to portray him as a hero as well. Not as the Hero, who rushes in and saves the day a.k.a Balthazar in this, but the hero who was there from the start, just trying to keep it together and to fight off the wolves for as long as he possibly can.  
I had quite a bit of fun writing this chapter, maybe a little too much, as you can probably tell I did get a bit carried away with length and so on, but this was actually fun to write. I liked playing with their characters in this; making Balthazar not always right. Maxim not always the evil, smarta$re bastard that we all know and love. And Veronica, well she's eleven in this and still new-ish to the craft, so she was Maxim support and main drive to staying alive and fighting.  
I hope you enjoyed this as much as I did writing it.


	15. Cookie

**Author's Note:** Yes, yes I know '16. Vegetarian' is suppose to be next but I'm having a bit of writer's block with that theme. I know what I want to write, it just that the words aren't flowing the way I want them to. Very annoying. Also I had my Information Technology exam yesterday and i needed to write something nice and fluffy afterwards, hence the little drabble for this theme. Which I very much hope you all like because I was kinda going out on a limb here, but then I think I'm going to be doing the same thing with theme 18 'Subway', so 'shrug'.

* * *

**17. Cookie**

Cookies?

Of all the things that she might possibly want, she wanted cookies. And not even the particularly odd flavoured ones. Just ordinary chocolate chip ones. They were the only type she wanted. The only type she craved for.

Which was fine by him. He had heard of the many odd things that woman tended to eat in this particular condition, so he was more than thankful that she had only shown a craving for cookies, the chocolate chip kind and strawberries.

The only downside about her cravings was _when_ she actually had them. Say at like three o'clock on a very rainy morning, such as one like this.

Not that he minded that much about going out in the wet and cold to get her as many bags of cookies as he could possibly carry, there had been far worse things that he had done on morning such as this, but still, it was three o'clock in the morning and despite himself he could not stop the yawns as he trudge through the downpour.

He had never been much of a sleeper in all his years alone. Sleep meant remembering things, remembering painful but happy times when all was right in his world, times that would never come to pass again. So, to stop himself of remembering, he did not sleep until he was generally about to keel over from exhaustion, so he was generally up at odd hours like this.

However, since she had returned into his life, sleep had once again come to be quite a natural and easy thing for him to do. He simply now closed his eyes and he was more or less dead to the world. Exactly how he had slept when he had been a very young man and child. However, he had discovered that with this that he now woke up like he had as a young man, rather crabby particularly when he was woken up unexpectedly.

But with this he really could not complain.

She had not meant to wake him with her tossing and turning. And when she had woken him, she had been overly apologetic about doing so.

It had taken a great deal of time to actually weasel out of her that she was craving cookies and that that craving was causing her inability to settle down and sleep.

Once he had that information out of her, he had quickly dressed, pulling on his warmest coat, kissed her forehead fondly as she once more told him to get just ordinary, plain, old supermarket cookies, not anything fancy, she didn't want him wondering around out in the cold city any longer than he had to. Fancy cookies weren't worth him freezing to death.

He had nodded to her words, shaking his head a little at them, before heading off to hunt down the fancy cookies that he knew she wanted but didn't want him to get for his sake.

However, lucky for her and for him, there was a fancy, highly respected bakery quite close to their shop that was opened at this time of the morning. Anywhere else he would have found this being rather fishy however this was New York and the bakery was station right next to the subway. It also had a 24/7 store next to it.

He brought over a dozen bags of ordinary chocolate chip cookies from there before buying six boxes of fancy chocolate chip cookies from the bakery. Both shop managers (both middle-ages men with rings on their left hand ring finger) nodded at him with knowing looks in their eyes as they handed him his purchases.

When he had returned to Arcana Cabana, he half expected to find that she had fallen back to sleep in her waiting for him to come back with the cookies. However he found her curled up on the couch, staring at the chattering TV with doubtful eyes as it spoken about customs of Medieval England.

When he came to stand in the doorway of the small lounge room, she took one look at him before huffing at him as she eyed his wet coat and the enormous bags that he was carrying. He smiled sheepishly at her.

"And how many more is that than one?" she asked as she eased herself, a little cautiously, off the couch, waving him away as he moved to help her up, to stand in front of him, hands on hips, scowling up at him. He smile became even more sheepish.

"Well, this means that you can have one whenever you want just one." He shrugged, trying to smile winningly down at her. She simply rolled her eyes back at him, but he saw the smallest touch of a fond smile forming on her lips and knew that he was forgiven.

"I am almost afraid to ask just how much all this cost. And I thought that I said just the ordinary kind, nothing fancy. You must have been wandering all over the city looking for these." She fretted as they proceed to put the bags and boxes of cookies away into cupboards in the kitchen.

"Not as much as you might think." She looked questioningly at him. He shrugged, once more feeling sheepish as he admitted. "I got something of a discount when the shop owners figured out why I was getting so much. And for not suppose to be getting anything fancy and having to walk all over the city to get them, both types of these cookies were located in stores right next to subway, right next to each other. So not much wandering around the city, at all." He shrugged again, before he opened a box of the 'fancy' chocolate chip cookies and held one out to her, grinning at her cheekily.

She scowled at him for a moment before sighing as she gave in.

She took the cookie from him, biting into it and smiled despite herself causing him to laugh. She swatted his arm gently.

Picking up the box with one hand and putting the other around her waist, he gently guided her back to the lounge room, where they both flopped on to the couch, with her curled up within his arms, cookies between them, watching the Television with very little interest.

"Are you not tired?" she asked him softly as the program on Medieval England ended and the next one began (Something about King Henry the eighth and his six wives. The poor women.) "You are teaching Dave Earth magic tomorrow, are you not? You need your sleep for that."

"And let you eat all the cookies?" he teased. She swatted his arm once again, but she settled herself more comfortably against him, knowing that he had no plans of leaving her by herself when she could not sleep. She bit into another cookie, before giving a small gasp of shock, forcing her to sit up straight in surprise.

"Veronica?" she felt her mouth twitch into a smile as she turned her head to into his wide blue-grey eyes, noting the concern and worry that filled them. Her smile grew a little more, which only confused him more, as what had caught her by surprise before happen again.

Without a word, she took hold of his hand and gently pressed it against the obvious swell of her belly, watching her beloved's eyes grow even wider, but this time with awe and love.

He smiled at her fondly, before kissing her forehead gently, mumbling, "Clearly the little one likes cookies just as much as its Mama does." He teased. Veronica simply rolled her eyes at him, too happy and pleased to swat his arm or to even scowl at him.

And so, the couple spent the rest of the early morning hours, eating cookies and waiting for their unborn child next kick and trying to predict by the strength of the kick whether or not it would be a boy or a girl.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Yeah I know its a bit of an odd one, but I like it and it made me feel much better after my I.T Exam 'sticks out tongue'. Hope you enjoyed.  
Also Names for their kid/s. I have a few in mind but I would love to hear some of your choices.  
Thanks for reading and reviews are much loved, lol.


	16. Door

**Author's Note:** Hello. I know its been awhile since I last updated this. Sorry, been in Europe... _'big grin'_. Saw Stonehenge _'even bigger grin'_.  
Anyway, it was a fun trip and fueled my imagination with lots of ideas of ficlet for SA. Yes, yes, I was in London and Paris and I'm was still thinking and writing up fanfiction for SA. I watch the movie on the plane about five times... there and back... Yeah, I'm not obsessed at all. My Aunt could not believe that I could watch it again and again, over and over. I convinced her to watch it and she quite enjoyed. She too is now a Balthazar/Veronica fan, but still she only watched it once.  
Anyway, I thought this up when I was walking around the Palace Versailles, the idea solidifying in the Hall of Mirrors (?). I don't know how Versailles brought this sort of ficlet to mind, but it did and several others too but they made a little more sense to where I was.  
Though I think idea came about when I was absently mindedly thinking what would happen if of a guardsman or steward lost his set of master keys and with all the doors that place has, losing them would be kinda disastrous.  
Anyway, please enjoy.  
No particular time frame with this one, but I guess you can think of them as young teenagers.

* * *

**85. Door**

"You're a complete fool!"

"But I thought that you had them!"

"Why would I have them?"

"Because you're usually the one who carries them whenever we leave the Tower!"

"Oh, so this is all my fault is it?"

…

"Yes!"

"Balthazar!"

"Well it is!"

"How is it my fault, when it was _you_ that Master gave them to?"

"I was closer to him at the time! And I put them in their normal place, so that _you _would pick them up when we left this morning."

"Oh, so it was still my responsibility to take them even when Master gave them to _you_ in the first place, is it?"

…

"Yes."

"Balthazar!"

"Would you please stop yelling at me?"

…

"NO!"

"Look, so we don't have them with us, fine. We just need to find another way into the Tower."

"And what way are we going to find in, hmmm Balthazar?"

"The windows?"

"Yes, well that would be a fine idea if they weren't all several feet above our heads and didn't have wards on them to stop exactly what you want us to try and do.

"Break down the door?"

"Once again; Wards!"

"How bout trying the moat? There is a door on the side of the Tower, just above the waterline that is never locked. We could try swimming for that."

"Brilliant idea. Off you go then?"

"Aren't you coming?"

"Are you mad? It's the middle of winter! And even if it was any other time of year, I still wouldn't go swimming in that thing."

"Oh but you are fine to let me go and do it?"

"And watch you freeze and splutter around in it? Of course, at least we'd have some form of entertainment while we wait out here, in the cold for Master to return to open this damn door!"

"But he might not be back for days!"

"Exactly, start swimming. I'm both bored and cold stiff out here."

"I don't think so."

"But you're the one who made the suggestion."

"Yes, but I'm not going to go through with it now if it is just going to be simply a form of entertainment for you."

"Then how are we going to get in?"

"I don't know. Blast the damn thing?"

"We've already been through this. There are wards on it remember."

"Fine then, I give up!"

"Well, you can't! You got us into this mess; you're getting us out of it."

"I did not."

"Yes, you most certainly did."

"I did n…"

"Oh for goodness sakes, you two, hush. It's not that bad."

"Not that bad? He forgot to bring the keys."

"I did not forget to bring them, you left them behind!"

"I did not."

"You two, please, we don't actually need the keys to get in."

"What on earth do you mean Veronica? Of course we do!"

"That's the whole point of keys are to use them to get into places. Their quite useful due to the fact that most doors have locks, these locks needing keys, keys that we sadly don't have on us."

"Because of you."

"I'm sorry. Are you happy now? I'm sorry that I forgot to bring the keys that you so often take with us without a second thought."

"Um, you two?"

"In moment, Veronica. So your still trying to blame this on me, are you?"

"What? I just apologized, you stupid oaf."

"Didn't sound like it? And who are you calling a 'stupid oaf', when this is all your fault!"

"Well, I'm going inside, just so you pair of oafs know. Enjoy the snow you two."

"Alright."

"Fine."

…

"Wait, Veronica. You can't get inside."

"We don't have any keys."

"I don't need keys to get inside." She said smiling sweetly at them as she walked calmly through the _open_ main door of the Tower.

"Wait a moment, how did you do that?" Balthazar spluttered, glancing over at Maxim whose mouth was hanging open a little in disbelief.

Without looking back at them, Veronica held up what looked like two bent hair pins, before she disappeared laughing somewhat gleefully in the direction of the library.

The two male apprentices glanced at each, knowing full well that neither of them were going to be living this down for quite some time.

"How long do you think she had it open for?" Maxim asked Balthazar as they both shook down their winter cloaks of snow before hanging theirs up beside Veronica's. It was much, much drier than theirs.

"Probably from the moment we realised that we had forgotten the keys and started arguing." Balthazar replied sighing, closing the heavy wooden door behind them.

"I hate when she does things like this."

"Hmmm, why?"

"Because it means we're going to be at her mercy for months now, having to put up with her laughing at us and so on." Maxim grumbled as they made their way towards the library themselves.

"But aren't we always at her mercy anyways? She laughs at us even when we're not making fools of ourselves."

"Which just makes me wonder if we're making fools of ourselves most of the time but we just don't realise it and she's the only one who does."

"Be just our luck." Balthazar agreed before shrugging. "Oh well, it can't be helped. At least we learnt something of use today?"

"Such as?" Maxim asked sounding doubtful.

"That we don't have to worry about keys so much anymore. We have Veronica to open the doors for us now. Our own personal key who we are most defiantly never going to forget."

"Oh, I don't know about that." A teasing voice said from the library entrance. The two male apprentice looked to find the youngest apprentice grinning at them cheekily. "You two seemed to have forgotten all about me when I was trying to get your attention when the pair of you were squabbling over who should have had the keys with them."

"We're sorry." Balthazar said sheepishly. Maxim nodded, his cheeks taking on a slightly reddish tinge.

She smiled sweetly at them before beginning to laugh at them once more.

"Your not going to let us live this one down, are you?" Maxim asked her sighing. She didn't say anything simply shaking her head.

"Well if that's the case then." Balthazar started, smiling at her with a great deal of mischief that made her look more than a little nervous. Maxim, catching on to what he was doing, copied his smile as the pair moved a little closer to her, causing her to take a step back.

"Attack!" the two male apprentices yelled as they lunged for Veronica who let out a loud squeal before dashing off laughing into the library. The two male apprentices sprinted after her through their Master's huge library, only to find when they reached the other side of it, themselves facing a door where a giggling Veronica was obviously behind.

Balthazar tugged on the handle before groaning.

"Locked?" Maxim asked.

"Yes, but we can just get the keys."

"Good luck with that." Veronica giggled before they heard her small feet running off to some part other part of the Tower to hide from them.

"What's the bet that she has them with her?" Maxim asked as they sprinted back the way they had come out of the library and into the main corridor of the ground floor of the Tower.

"Oh without a doubt she has them, but that's what going to make this more fun."

"You think?" Maxim asked doubtfully. He noted the cheeky light in the younger apprentice's eyes and almost felt sorry for Veronica, knowing full well that when they finally caught her she was going to suffer a major tickling attack from the blue-grey eyed apprentice.

"Bet you. READY OR NOT HERE WE COME!" he roared before pelting in the direction where they both faintly heard a series of faint giggles.

Maxim rolled his eyes before shaking his head. They really were a group of complete fools but at least it was fun being one.

Grinning at that he ran off after Balthazar, hearing a loud squeal of surprised and the sound of pounding feet from the corridor above his head. He shook his head again, laughing.

Complete fools, every single one of them.

* * *

**Author's Note:**There will be more ficlets coming. I wrote a few while I was over there, maybe a few too many considering I was in feign countries for the first time in my life, but since I was Paris for a week and can't speak a word of French beyond what I've heard in the movies; you know 'bonjour', 'merci beaucoup' and of course 'wee'. Anyway, I didn't have anyone really to talk to beside my Aunt and Grandmother, so being the antisocial little writer that I am, I did as all writers do and sat in a corner of the hotel room in the evenings and wrote up fanfic and other stories and so on.  
Anyway, thanks for reading and you know reviews are much loved.


	17. Subway

**Author's Note:** This came to me when I was on the London Underground' shrugs'. I get imspired almost anywhere.  
Anyway, this end up a lot more long winded and complicated then what it was orginally, but I rather like how its come out and I hope you all do to.

* * *

**18. Subway**

Her brain did not understand. It did not understand why she was doing this. Her heart understood, more or less, but was wondering why she was about to put herself through a world of heartache by doing what she was planning on doing.

It wasn't exactly the smartest of things to be doing, nor was it one of the safest, especially now with her current condition, but she pushed all those thoughts aside as she made her ways for the subway, located only a few blocks from Dave's private lab, where at that very moment he and her beloved were training… or more correctly her beloved was picking on Dave via using his Tesla coils against him to make his point.

She shook her head slightly at her beloved's methods to try and get the desired results from the Prime Merlinian and his magic.

She sighed heavily.

Neither of them knew where she was really going. They both thought that she was going to the library, being too fixated on what they were doing to notice the rushed tone to her voice as she hurriedly pulled on her coat to protect her against New York's harsh weather.

She shivered slightly in her coat, wrapping it more tightly around her as she walked down the steps into the Subway underground.

She swiped the card that Balthazar had given her for public transport use, even though he had grumbled about getting one, pointing out that he had perfectly good car that was happy to take her anywhere she wanted to go. But public transport served Dave and Becky well enough, so she saw no reason to not use the transport that was available to her, even if she did so rarely ever use it.

She looked up and down the platform before closing her eyes, sensing. Yes, there it was, faint though, as if the owner was trying to conceal it, but he had never been very good at concealing his magic, for he wanted people to feel it, to realise just how much power he had within him.

_He is only concealing it now because he knows that Balthazar is near by and_… she didn't know. Maybe he was tired of fighting, tired of being on the wrong side of them.

_Why am I doing this?_ She wondered, feeling the pain in her heart as the wound of his betrayal ripped open a little. _This is not going to change anything? Why make myself suffer so?_

She almost made to leave but she felt him, a little stronger this time, off to the left, in a far corner of the subway.

_Why is he even here?_ From what she had gathered and of what she knew of both he and Balthazar, neither of them seemed to be big on the idea of taking public transport. It meant dealing with people, something that the pair of them avoided when it wasn't in their interest.

Hesitating for just a moment longer, she made her way in that direction, her eyes searching madly around at the people that pushed their way around her, so in a hurry to get where they were going that they took no heed of her and the countless time she lost her balance due to a body shoving itself roughly past her.

She winced as another person shoved her aside as they half ran to the catch the arriving train. Gasping a little as she rubbed the small swell of her belly, she took another look around her. If she didn't find him now, she told herself firmly, she would give up and return back to the lab and eat a great many chocolate chip cookies and curse the lack of manners of modern day society.

_So of course_, she thought a little grimly as she looks into a particularly dark corner of the subway tunnel, _I am going to find him now_. And she had, from the looks of things and from how much familiar power the deeply shadowed man was emitting.

She moved a little close, just to be sure, but as she did, she knew immediately that she was correct, even though he did look so different.

Her heart gave a little ache.

He was reading a heavy book, oblivious it appeared, to everything that was happening around him, including her.

She could still run if she wished, but she didn't, she simply moved closer to him, waiting for him to pick up on her aura.

Honestly after all this time, he must have finally learnt to sense auras! But obviously not, for he continued to be absorbed in his book even with her only being a few feet away from him.

_That or he is simply ignoring me_, she thought irritably. Both options seemed likely. She took another step towards him and crossed her arms carefully across her belly and said. "Well, never was I to imagine meeting you again in such a place such as this."

She looked him over, carefully. He did not look up at her, acting almost as if he had not heard her words, but the tension in his shoulders informed her that he had.

She took another step towards him, arms still crossed firmly against her belly, feeling a furious feeling growing within it, knowing it had nothing to do with the child that grew within her, but her own age old fury at him and what he had done to them. To their master. But she fought the feeling back. She wasn't here to yell and scream and rant at him. At least that was not what she had originally planned on doing, but then, what original plan did she actually have? None, she had simply planned to come and see if it really was him that she was sensing so close by.

"Are you going to speak to me or simply ignore me?" she demanded a little more hotly than she had planned. So much for trying to be cold and distant, to act like she didn't care that he was there.

"Why are you here?"

"The very same question can be asked of you?" She snapped annoyed. They were going to go round in circles, she could just tell, like they had as youngsters, when he and Balthazar were trying to get out of being scolded by her for some mischief or wrong doing they had done or were about to do.

"I could be just sitting here quietly, reading my book, minding my own business." He pointed out calmly, as he turned a page of his book.

"You never sit quietly nor mind your own business. And you've never read a book unless it was about swords or you were forced to under the pain of no supper." She snapped, feeling even more irritated, which she knew was exactly what he was trying to do. Make her so irritated that she would end up storming off and he would be able to slip back into the shadows once more.

"You are speaking from a time that has long since past." He muttered, still not looking up from his book, still refusing to look at her.

"Oh, so you do now sit quietly, mind your own business and read a book without 'no supper' threats, hmmm?" his eyes flicker upwards at her, a half-hearted glare within them. She smirked a little back at him.

"Are you going to answer my question?" he asks her, turning the next page of his book. She tilted her head slightly, dark eyebrows raised. "Or must I answer yours first?"

"What do you think?"

He sighed heavily, sincerely regretting ever coming here.

"I don't know." He admitted, shrugging.

"What do you mean you don't know? You never do anything without some reason or other and I can hardly see you using one of those mechanical contraptions to get you some place. So why are you here?"

"What if I am here to use one of those 'mechanical contraptions' to get me somewhere?" he teased her calmly. She scowled at him.

"Because public transport is hardly something that you would do. Too many people and having to abide by other's plans are things that neither you or Balthazar can stand." She noted his shoulders grow stiff once more at the mention of her beloved's name causing her to scowl a little deeper. This was truly ridiculous to her. How both he and Balthazar could get mad over something so simple as the mention of the others name. But then, granted, she did not know everything that had happen between them in the many years of her concealment within the Grimhold.

She felt her chest grow a little tighter and squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, trying to block out the memories of that horrid place.

"Are you alright?"

She opened her eyed him suspiciously. Though he's face was lacking any sort of expression, his eyes showed the concern that she remembered him having when she had been a young child, when he had saved her and Balthazar from whatever scrape they had managed to land themselves into or rather he had helped them land themselves into.

"Fine. Headache." She lied. He shook his head.

"You truly are a terrible liar Veronica."

"At least I'm not as bad as Dave." She replied, thinking back only two days ago, when Dave had tried to make up some array of elaborate excuses as to why he was late for training, failing miserably in doing so and ending up almost fried by his Tesla Coils until he finally caved into admitting he had simply lost track of time in the library, missed his train in doing so and so on and so forth. The actual truth was just as long and involved as his original excuses, though with considerable less drama in it and it became understandable as to why he had tried to lie about being late when the truth was so simple and mundane.

"Yes, the boy is a rather bad liar, isn't he?" he mused thoughtfully. Veronica shook her head, 'rather bad' still sounded like an understatement to her.

They stayed silent for a time, unsure of what to say or do.

"Does he know you're here? Or why you're here?" he asked her suddenly, looking up from his book and finally meeting her in the eye. She frowned.

"Who?"

He rolled his eyes at her, his face sceptical.

"No, he doesn't." she admitted, feeling a little guilty about not telling him what she was really up to but if she had, he would never have let her come down here or at least not without him and who knew what would have happen then. "I told him I was going to the library."

"And he believed you?" his face was still sceptical. They both knew that Balthazar was the best at catching on to her lies, knowing when she was lying almost as soon as she had opened her mouth.

"He was distracted?" his eyes brows shot up questioningly. "With Dave. Trying to teach him how to get electricity to work for him and so far, Dave has only accomplished with setting his Tesla coils against him."

"Ah." Was all he said, mulling that over. "So while he was distracted with young Dave, you thought to sneak down here, knowing that your sudden departure wouldn't be too deeply question with the misfiring of Tesla coils happening."

She nodded, shrugging a little. No point in denying it when what he said was more or less true.

"That and I wanted to see if you really were that stupid to come back so shortly after what had happened."

"Who ever said I left?"

"You didn't? Then what have you been doing all this time?" she was actually genuinely curious to know what he had been up to see she had last seen him. He shrugged.

"Recovering mainly from what happen that night. And thinking about where to go from here."

"Sounds rather boring and low-key for you." She muttered. He grinned slowly in agreement.

"But I can't do much else, can I? When I know that even the slightest hint of me will have Balthazar and the Prime Merlinain down my throat. Though," he eyed thoughtfully, "you found me easily enough and I was simply sitting here."

"Are you really that surprised that I did?"

"No, not really, I suppose. You were always rather good at finding people, weren't you? I guess I am more surprised that you didn't find me earlier than this."

"I've been busy." She said, shrugging, shifting her feet a little as pins and needles started to set in from her standing for so long.

"Yes, I can definitely see that." He said sounding a little peeved as his dark eyes racked over her form, taking in the plain gold ring on her left hand ring finger and the slight swell to her belly under her coat. She met his gaze coolly, even though her heart started to pound a little harder in her chest. She knew what his temper was like and though she didn't think that he would actually attack her, she was still nervous about what he might do.

He did nothing however, just simply looked her over, his peeved look cooled from her glare so that now it was simply a look of annoyance, though his eyes had an almost sad, longing look in them.

"Why him?"

"Pardon?" she asked, feeling a little confused at the question, trying to figure out where he was going with it or what actually he wanted in answer to it.

His dark eyes flared a little as they glared back at her.

"You heard me clear enough; why him? Why did you choose Balthazar over me?"

She fought back a groan.

Why did they have to go over this again? It had been hard enough the first time, for all of them and she did not want to have to go through the same pain that she had gone through then when she had realised that she had more or less been the factor that had destroyed the brotherly relationship between her two most favourite people in the world.

_Then why did you come here then?_ A small little voice asked her in the back of her mind. _To make yourself and them suffer more? Haven't you made them both suffer enough?_

_I came here because I want answers_. She replied coolly back, her heart throbbing painfully.

_Answers to what?_ It replied and she had no answer for it. She didn't know what she wanted to know, what answers she wanted to get from him. Maybe the assurance that she hadn't been the main reason for his turning to the darkness, that there was another reason for it, besides her choosing Balthazar over him. Even though there had been no choosing involved, at least never for her, it had just always been him.

"I didn't choose." She said softly. He frowned at her, not believing her. "It was never about choosing. If I had had any choice in the matter, I wouldn't have chosen either of you." He looked completely confused now. He didn't understand of course. Balthazar did, in a way, but he had been still been confused and more than a little hurt when she had tried to explain it to him in this way.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that if I had had a choice in the whole matter I would have tried and kept everything as it always was. The three of us as we always were, the same friendship, the same bonds. If I could have I would have kept it just as it always was. To keep the complications that happened with us from happening…" she trailed off weakly.

"You still chose."

She sighed.

"I don't think it can be called that as there truly was no choosing involved. I love you both, very much, but just differently. I don't know why. I don't even know when the change even happened. It just did and I do not think any of us could have done anything to change it or stop it..." Once more she trailed off. She couldn't make him understand when she herself did not.

Why had she grown to love one more, or rather differently from the other?

They were both very different from each other but she loved them for that. With their faults, she had still loved them for them.

Why she couldn't have continued to love them both as older brothers was beyond her understanding.

But then, the thought of Balthazar being with someone else and not with her, sent cold, sharp shards of ice into her heart. The idea was too painful to even contemplate; too strange it was for her to think of him being with someone else other than her. The idea of him not being in her life, a part of her life, being her husband and best of friend, father to their unborn child, she couldn't comprehend that.

She could feel Maxim watching her face closely, as if he could see the turmoil going on inside her head; hear what her thoughts were saying. His eyes grew a little sad, a small amount of understanding what she was trying to say in them.

"I never really stood a chance, did I?"

She sighed heavily, feeling extremely uncomfortable and unhappy about the situation. She shouldn't have come, she was just making everything worse and hurting the people she loved dearly more deeply then she already had.

She stared up at him sadly, not sure what to say, not sure if anything she could say would help at all. So instead she asked. "Are you ever going to come back?"

He looked more than a little startled by her question, the sadness fading from his eyes at it.

"I don't know. Not really much point."

"Then where will you go?"

"I was thinking of somewhere in Europe. Settle somewhere and think about things, wait for some new and interesting world event to happen."

She nodded slowly, unsure how she felt about what he was saying. Part of her desperately, desperately want this man who had once been her protective older brother to stay and patch things up with her and Balthazar, so that they could once more be three apprentices and teach Dave all that he needed to learn to be a sorcerer and the Prime Merlinian.

_But we're not apprentices anymore_, she thought, a little sadly.

The other part of her wanted him gone, to never ever have to see him again, so as to forget the terrible pain that he had caused both her and Balthazar, especially Balthazar.

"I am sorry." She looked up at him, a little startled by him apologizing. Even as youngsters it was a rare thing for him to do and as they had grown older, well he had always acted as if he was above apologizing for anything. So all she could say in return was. "Are you possessed?"

His mouth moved into a small smile.

"No. At least I don't believe I am. But I mean it," his eyes growing serious again, "I am sorry."

She nodded her head slowly. She wasn't ready to forgive him, not sure if she ever would be, at least not completely. But she could see that he was sincere and that there was some remorse in those dark orbs.

They fell silent once more, simply looking at the normal people passing them without a glance, getting on with their lives as they saw fit to do so. Her feet were starting to ache and she was starting to feel more than a little nausea from all the smells that were down in the Subway, but she wasn't sure if this was due to the baby inside of her or her own dislike of all the chemicals, pollution and cigarette smoke that was filling her nostrils. She grimaced a little.

She was more than a little thankful when Maxim rose to his feet, his own face pulled in a look of disgust as well.

_None of us seem to be able to stand the smells of this modern world for too long_, she thought, understanding now a little better as to why her beloved disliked public transport. The smell of the Subway really was revolting and she found herself longing and not for the first and she doubt to be the last, the smell of real fresh air, clean and untouched, like it had been as when they were all children.

She glanced back to where Maxim was standing, tucking his book under his arm as he straighten his long black coat. He had gone back to not looking at her.

Without a word between them, the two fell in step with one enough, like they had when they had been apprentice, making their way for the Subway exit.

Veronica felt more than a little grateful for his presence beside her due to the fact that the rate of people shoving past her decreased dramatically and any who did and she lost her balance he would simply catch her shoulder, righted her before murderously glaring at the one who had caused the offense, them hastily apologizing to her before hurrying away as fast as they could with a rather nervous look now upon their face.

When they reached the entrance to the subway, he didn't say goodbye, as she half hoped he would, it would have made it so much easier if he simply had. Instead, he ruffled her hair. A simple gesture of affection but one that he had once given both her and Balthazar frequently when they had been youngsters and it was this that just about broke her.

A ruffling of hair may have seemed a silly and simple to others, but to her it brought back memories of time when her life had been golden, hard at times but she had always gotten by because she had had Balthazar and Maxim by her side. Now she had only one and her heart almost shattered at the lost of the other who seemed to be so close but still so far even though he was standing right in front of her outside the Subway tunnel, his hand still ruffling her dark locks.

And then he was gone, not magically, he simply walked away, from her, from Balthazar, from everything, just like he had the first time and like the first time her heart shattered as he did so.

She opened her mouth to call him back but no words came further and he didn't look back to see her fighting back tears that were threatening to fall from her dark eyes.

She wasn't a hundred percent sure how she made it back to Dave's lab, only that she suddenly found herself standing at the labs wired door, hearing from behind it Dave yelping over something while Balthazar sounded more than a little amused by whatever was happening within the circle.

She rubbed her eyes furiously, even though no tears had fallen from them, she knew that one look at her and Balthazar would that something was wrong. Dave would probably realise something was wrong too.

She shook herself and placed her hand upon the wired green door handle.

"Hey, I think Veronica's back."

"Dave, you can't use that as an excuse as to why you can't redirect electricity from your Tesla coils."

"I'm not using that as an excuse, I really think that she is."

"And why is that?"

"Um… I don't know."

"You don't know…" she felt herself start to smile at her Beloved's drawl.

"It just a feeling I had… have." The poor boy sounded confused, but sensing auras could be a little dodgy at times. Just to test him a little, she let her aura flare a little and smiled a little more broadly as she heard the boy give a small yelp of surprise.

"See. She's standing right outside the lab."

"Dave…"

"Go see for yourself if you don't believe me."

Veronica, chuckling a little, opened the wired door just as Balthazar started to voice more doubts, him to becoming speechless when he and Dave both looked up to find her smiling down at them as she walked down the old steel stairs.

Dave gave a loud whoop of triumphant, beaming brightly and somewhat smuggling at his master, who simply rolled his eyes back at him, as he moved to meet her at the bottom of the stairs, though his face pulled into a small frown as he looked into her eyes, noting the distress and sadness in them. He face became questioning but she shook her head, moving around him, though she took hold of his hand to give it a reassuring squeeze as she turned her attention the still very pleased apprentice.

"I did it. I finally did it." He said proudly. She grinned.

"Not many can sense my aura. I'm very proud of you." She congratulated, noting the pleased blush spread across the boy's cheeks causing her to grin further and her beloved to give an exasperated sigh, before saying, "Well I guess you've done something right for today, Dave, so I guess you can go home… or to wherever Becky is more likely." The boy grinned sheepishly before running out of Merlin's circle, tripping of this and that in his haste to get all his things together and get out the door, to go and visit Becky.

"Same time tomorrow Dave." Balthazar reminded the boy as he sprinted past them up the stairs.

"Uh huh, yup." The boy called back before he was out the door, trying to pull on his jacket back to front. Balthazar shook his head in mild amusement before turning his attention to Veronica who was looking after the boy with a similar expression as him, though the sad look in her eyes was still there.

"I'm going to guess you didn't go to the library." He said quietly. She gave a slight nod of her head. He tilted his, trying to understand her expression and figure out what had given her eyes such a shattered look about them.

"Where did you go?" he asked, not really expecting an answer and wasn't going to push for one knowing that she would tell him everything when she felt like it or up to it.

"The Subway." She mumbled softly. Now he was truly confused, why on earth would she go there? He had a perfectly nice car for her to ride in and not one of those horribly over-crowded smelly carriages.

"Why?"

She shook her head and instead wrapped her arms around him, pulling herself close to him, laying her head upon his chest over his beating heart. Understanding that she really did not want to talk about whatever she had been through, he simply returned her embrace, hugging her close to him, kissing the crown of her head fondly.

Veronica closed her eyes, breathing him in deeply, feeling safe and warm in his arms. It had never been about choosing. Never.

How could she choose when her heart had always belonged to him?

Her brain had not understood. It had not understood why her heart beat a little faster when he was around her. Why her cheeks grew hot and her stomach warm and filled with butterflies whenever he smiled at her. It had not understood. But her heart had. Her heart understood more or less of the why's and the how's and it had been thrilled when her brain had finally understood.

It had never been about choosing. Not ever. It had just always been.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Yup, very long winded and both fun and sad to write. I tried to keep them all in character as much as possible but I think I might have lost Horvath usual 'i'm-more-superior-than-thee' and I'm sorry about that, I just figured that he would try and understand things from her level... possibly. I don't know, I was just curious to see if... I don't really know, I just wanted to see where I could go with this and this is where it went. I might try something like this again, at a later date, but I don't mind too much on how this turned out.  
Anyway thanks for reading.


	18. Flower

**Author's Note:** Hey Everyone, Merry Christmas. I'm going away... sometime, so I don't know when I'll update this next, might be in the next hour or in three weeks, don't know, anyways that is one of main reasons why this is so long, also because I just had too much fun writing it and it just got longer and longer as more ideas for it flowed, so yeah.

* * *

**31. Flower**

"Are you still brooding over what to give her?"

Balthazar looked up from his Incantus, a little startled to find Maxim standing in front of him, one hand on his hip, the other holding his jewelled sword against his shoulder.

"Yes." He replied simply before returning to flipping through the huge, heavy book.

"And you think the answer to what to give her will be in there, do you?" Balthazar fought back an irritated sigh as he once more looked up into his not related by blood older brother's curious dark eyes.

"I don't know, maybe. I mean, we've looked through everything else for ideas and come up with nothing. I just thought, you know maybe, I might get an idea from here." Maxim nodded slowly to what he was saying before leaning forward a little, so as to be able to see what page he was currently on.

"Any luck?"

"No." Balthazar groaned, slamming the heavy book shut and dumping it, rather unceremoniously beside him on the stone steps that he was currently sitting on, outside of Merlin's Tower, enjoying the last of the warmth from the summer sun.

"This is really bothering you, isn't it?" Maxim asked even though he already knew the answer, as he flopped down beside the younger boy. The boy nodded glumly.

"Ah, remember the days when we didn't actually care what we gave our relatives, particularly our sisters." Maxim teased.

"And now we get all worked up about trying to find the perfect gift for a little girl we have only known for little more than six months." Balthazar grumbled as he placed his head glumly on his knees.

"Yup. So why are we getting all worked up over trying to find the perfect gift for her?"

"I don't know. You're the eldest, you figure it out."

"Yes, but you're the smart one." Maxim responded calmly, swiping the invisible dirt from the blade of his sword with the sleeve of his shirt. Balthazar watched him silently, thinking hard.

"Maybe because it's her first birthday with us and we want to do something special for her."

"Wish we knew what that special was." Maxim sighed. "Which would be helped a lot, if she would just tell us what she wants for her birthday."

"She said she didn't want anything."

"And yet, here you are trying to figure out what to get her." Maxim teased.

Balthazar shrugged. "You only turn eleven once."

"You only turn all ages once." Maxim laughed. "Unless you're like my mother who always lies about your age." He added darkly, rolling his eyes in memory of his vain mother, who tried all means to remain young and beautiful. Maxim thought she was seemly making herself look older faster. Stupid woman.

"Yes, well Veronica's not reached that stage yet. And hopefully never will."

"What stage?" A quiet, rich voice asked from behind them. Both boys crane their necks back, blinking a little against the blazing sun, to see Veronica coming down the stairs towards them, dressed as a boy, even with a cap on her head, her long dark hair tucked up in it as to keep her neck and head cool.

"Where you start worrying about your age. But by the looks of you now though, that might never actually happen." Maxim said as a way of greeting as she came to sit beside Balthazar, handing them both a pair of caps to put of their heads.

She pulled a face at him.

"Are you two still on about my birthday?" she asked, rolling her dark eyes as they both nodded.

"Yes. What do you want?" Maxim demanded. Balthazar looked at her questioningly.

"I don't want anything."

"Why not? It's your birthday. One of the few things that Master actually celebrates."

She shrugged.

"I don't need anything. I have food, clothes, a roof over my head. I'm healthy. I'm learning how to control and use my magic so that I can help people. I have a wonderful master and…" she smiled fondly at the two boys, "I have two wonderful fellow apprentices." The two boys felt their cheeks grow warm but quickly put that down to the heat of the Sun.

"Yes, but you must want something." Balthazar prodded. A slight flicker of something went a cross her eyes, a flicker of longing. But as quickly as it had come, it was gone again.

"There is something, isn't there." He said starting to grin. "What is it?"

Veronica opened her mouth as if to answer him, but…

"Boys? Veronica? What in the blazes are the three of you doing out there in this heat? Come inside and do something practical." They heard Merlin call from one of the many windows high above their heads, though they heard every word that he bellowed down to them.

"Practical? He just wants us to sit that bloody, stuffy library and read from our Incantus." Maxim grumbled as he got to his feet, dragging Balthazar to his feet with him, as the boy was still looking at Veronica curiously, determined to not let her off the hook as to what she wanted for her birthday gift. Veronica, however, seemed to be ignoring him and was now bounding up the steps, two at a time, quick a feat for one so small with steps so wide.

As the two boys walked slowly after her, in no hurry to go and sit in the library, stuffy in summer and freezing in winter, at least outside, while being hot, there was a breeze, unlike in the long room.

"Let it go Balthazar. She doesn't want anything, maybe next year she will. At least we'll have a little celebration for her." Maxim reassured him, gently grasping his shoulder before going off to find himself a drink before heading to the library.

"But she does want something." He muttered after the older boy, before following him to get a drink for himself too.

For the rest of the day and over the next, Balthazar watched the little girl carefully, trying to discover any hint or clue as to what she might want, what she had been thinking to cause that brief flicker of longing in her eyes.

It wasn't until two days later, a week from her birthday, that he discovered what that longing was for.

* * *

They were working on their illusion, working together to create an illusion of a courtyard; Maxim was to work on creating the people, him on the castle and Veronica was to create the rest of the scenery, sky, trees, paths, flowers and so on.

"Saints, this is hard." Maxim grumbled as he created the image of King Arthur, his queen and several of his knights and was now trying to get them to walk around the image that Balthazar and Veronica had created.

Balthazar simply nodded, unable to speak, concentrating too hard on trying to stop his mind from slipping and losing the image of the courtyard. He had already destroyed one imaginary tower that day and as fun as it had been to watch it collapse and disappear into oblivion, Merlin's temper afterwards had not been.

He glanced over to Veronica, who unlike him, seemed to be having absolutely no trouble controlling her bits of the illusion, in fact she was walking around it, looking around her with interest, while her two older fellow apprentices were rooted to the spots they had begun with.

He watched her smile as she walked over to a small wall where a row of brilliant coloured flowers grew, her hand lightly trailing over the top of them. She leant forward and sniffed a rose before pulling back, frowning a little at it. Screwing up her face a little, her eyes partly shut, her purple stone ring glowing, she learnt back down and sniffed the rose again. When she stood up straight again, she was smiling broadly and the next moment, both he and Maxim could both smell the rich and pretty scents of all the different flowers that were present in the illusion.

Maxim glanced over at Balthazar, rolling his eyes, mouthing, 'shown up by a ten year old. He's never going to let us live it down." Before grimacing as he tried to get two of his imagined knights to battle one another, with very little success. Balthazar, however, didn't care for the moment that his Master was probably watching from outside the circle, shaking his head at his two incompetent male apprentices, no he was watching Veronica, feeling a flicker of an idea forming inside his head the more he watched her tend to her flowers.

Her flowers.

Flowers!

"Balthazar!"

The annoyed cry from Maxim came too late and for the second time that day Balthazar and his fellow apprentices watch with interest as the castle that he had created started to collapse onto itself before disappearing into oblivion.

"What happen?" Maxim demanded as his imaginary people too disappeared, along with rest of the illusion.

"Tired." Balthazar said shrugging. He was, in fact, tired. As were his fellow apprentice, even Veronica, who had seemed quite comfortable within the imagined world.

"That and I think you figured out something of great importance. At least I pray for your sake that it was important, Balthazar Blake or you will be finding yourself in the kitchens cleaning every pot and pan that is in there. Twice." The three apprentices' jumped as their Master came to stand with them, all three looking up at him with some degree of guilt.

"Well, Balthazar?" Merlin asked his second apprentice, who was now looking more than a little sheepish with all the attention he was receiving from both his Master and fellow apprentices.

"I think it is. Important, I mean. It just came to me."

"An idea?"

"Yes, Master. At least it's the start of one."

"Well since this idea of yours has disturbed our lesson, quite literally, into oblivion I think that we should call it quits for the day." The three apprentices fought back their grins of delight as they all stepped out of their respective circles and made to leave the training chamber.

"However Balthazar," Balthazar fought back a groan as his two fellow apprentices shot him sympathetic looks as they past him.

"Yes Master?"

"I want to hear all about this grand, important idea of yours that disturbed our lesson so, this evening after supper." Balthazar really did have to fight back a groan this time as he nodded to his Master before hurrying after the other two. How was he supposed to explain to his Master that his so called 'grand, important idea' had merely been a vague notion on what to do for Veronica's birthday gift?

Her gift? A flower?

Now what exactly had been his idea, again? It had something to do with flowers, something about the look that she had been giving them, though not exactly the flowers themselves, but something else… something…

He felt the flicker of the idea come back, but this time it was more than just an idea, it was a plan.

He face broke into a grin. He knew exactly what to give as a gift for Veronica for her birthday, but it really depended on whether his Master would agree to it…

Ignoring the startled yelped from his fellow apprentices that he had just caught up to, he turned quickly on his heels to pelt back in the direction that he had come.

"Master?"

"My goodness, how times seems to fly when one is cleaning up the mess that is made by ones apprentices. Has supper time come and went already, Balthazar?"

"No Master."

"Then why, pray tell boy, are you here?"

"To tell you my idea, Master." Balthazar gushed out excitedly, not quite believing how simple his idea was.

"Oh, and what is it about? This grand, important idea of yours?"

"Veronica's birthday gift." The old man actually rolled his eyes when his apprentice gushed that out.

"I thought as much. You lot don't seem to have much more on your mind when a birthday is coming up. Well what is your idea then? It might give me some of my own."

Balthazar felt a moment of amusement.

"Don't you know what to give her either Master?" Balthazar asked more than a little amused by this.

His Master shot him a warning look.

"I have not had much to do with the gift giving for young girls." He admitted grouchily. Balthazar nodded slowly, before grinning.

"I'll let you in on my idea for a gift for her as long as you agree to it and possibly give me a hand with it." He knew he was probably pushing his luck, but he hoped that due to the fact that he so rarely asked for anything, he might have this one time in his favour.

"It depends on the idea." Merlin said, before beckoning his second apprentice over to him and the two sat at the old workbench that stood to one side of the training chamber.

"Which, what is this idea of yours?"

"A garden." Balthazar stated simply. His Master blinked at him.

"Pardon?"

"We give her a garden. Of her very own, so that she can plant… plants in it." The boy shrugged weakly while smiling hopefully up at his Master.

"And what makes you think that this is what she might like?" Merlin demanded, though he was warming to the idea greatly.

"Because-because she was tending to the flowers in the illusion so gently and carefully. She went to all that trouble to give them smell even though now she has a headache from it."Merlin nodded as the young boy spoke.

Yes, he too had noticed the care and gentle attention that his youngest apprentice had give to the plants and flowers within that illusionary world. He had also picked up on the longing look she had give them, something that obviously his second apprentice had picked up on too, but unlike him, had made the connection and by doing so had come up with this rather unique but wonderful idea for a gift for the young girl. A gift that she would most likely cherish for the rest of her life, unlike with a dress or a piece of jewellery, that came and went, a garden could remain forever, if cared for well. The only problem was though…

"Her birthday is a week away, Balthazar." He pointed out gently.

"I know, but if we at least give her the set up for a garden then she can plant whatever she wants through autumn and winter and then when spring come," he leaves it at that a grin on his face. Merlin shook his head at the length that this boy was willing to go for the littlest apprentice.

"You'll need Maxim's help, I should think, to pull this off." The boy nodded his head vigorously.

"He wouldn't forgive me if I left him out of this anyways."

"Well go off and tell him this grand, important idea of yours and then we'll see about what we can do to put into effect." Merlin said as he rose to his feet, his young apprentices scrambling to his own as he did so.

"But what about Veronica?" Merlin looked down at the boy curiously.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, this should be a secret, like most gifts, it should be a surprise for her to get on the day of her birthday." He was smiling as he spoke.

"I don't know how we could possibly keep a garden a surprise from her, Balthazar." The boy simply grinned broader.

"An illusion?" the boy offered before running off to find the oldest apprentice, leaving his Master to shake his head in slight disbelief.

* * *

"Master?"

"Yes, Veronica?" Merlin looked up from his Incantus to acknowledge the presence of his youngest apprentice, noting as he did so how downcast she looked.

"What is the matter?" the old man asked her gently. The young girl's eyes stared intently down at her feet, shifting them slightly.

"The Balthazar and Maxim are ignoring me." She mumbled softly.

"Oh." Yes, of course they were. Trying to keep the garden a secret from the curious young girl had taken its dole on all of them. The only way that the boys had found to stop themselves from blurting out about the garden to her was by not talking to her or at least saying as few words to her as possible.

And of course Veronica was having none of that. Determined she was to find out what she had possible done to have the silent treatment placed upon her, she had barely left the boys alone, not pestering them with questions about why, simply being around them as she always had over the past six months.

It wasn't working though, the boys still said little to her and they had tried to make themselves as hard to find as possible so that they would not have to be rude by telling her to go away when they went to work on her birthday garden.

Which of course, because of the boys' secrecy she still had no idea about it, however was most likely coming up with all sorts of other conclusions as to why the boys were no longer holding a conversation with her and were more or less ignoring her.

"It's a phase little one. It'll pass." As soon as your birthday arrives, that is.

"But what if it doesn't?" the little girl stressed.

"It will, trust me child. It will."

"How do you know?"

"Because I know those two and I know how much they adore you, more than I think they do anyone else and they will do anything in their power to make you happy and to give you whatever you might want." He watched the silent understanding begin to form within her dark eyes as he spoke, noting the redness to her cheeks as she blushed happily at his words while also being embarrassed by them.

"My birthday gift?" she mumbled softly. He nodded.

"But you didn't hear that from me now, did you?" Merlin said to her, ruffling her dark hair fondly. She shook her head, an excited look in her eyes now.

"Do you know what it is?" she asked sounding both curious and excited, quite a change of appearance from when she had first entered his study. She was practically bouncing now.

"Yes, I do." He noted the hopeful look in her eyes grow even bright. "And no, I am not going to tell you what it is." The girl shrugged, looking too relieved and excited to really care about his secrecy.

"They're not ignoring you Veronica."

"I know that now." She mumbled happily, smiling up at him, the relief though was all too evident in her dark eyes.

"And I guess I don't need to tell you that you aren't to go trying and finding your gift. That is not until your birthday."

"Is it well hidden?"

"At the moment it is."

She nodded thoughtfully, but was still smiling happily.

"Off you go then."

* * *

"Where are we going Master?" Maxim asked as he and Balthazar followed their Master deep into the wood that surrounded the Tower.

"To ask for a bit of help with Veronica's garden, as it has become quite clear that neither of you are much of gardeners."

"Sorry." The two chorus sheepishly, stumbling along over roots and fallen branches that seemed to give their Master ahead of them no trouble at all.

"Aren't you glad that I made you wear shoes Balthazar?" Their Master called back to them as Balthazar tripped on a tree root for the seventh time.

Balthazar simply groaned, not glad at all that his Master had made him wear shoes. He had walked this forest bare-footed hundreds of times and had never tripped over; it was the shoes that were making him fall. But he didn't say this out loud; he knew all too well how fond his Master was of his damn old man shoes.

"Where do you think he's taking us?" Maxim asked him as he helped him to his feet once again.

"No idea. Do you think he'd noticed if I took these damn things off?" Maxim simply rolled his eyes at him before half running after their Master, leaving him once more behind.

"I'd be in front of them if it weren't for these things." Balthazar grumbled as he glared at his feet, or particularly at the hard leather boots that were on them.

'_You don't like shoes either, do you boy?'_ Balthazar was quite sure he was going to have a heart attack when the soft, wind chimed voice spoke to him from apparently out of no where.

'_I think you've scared him, sister.'_ Giggled another voice from his right, though he saw no one there. Nothing was there but trees, endless trees as far as the eye could see so deep in the forest.

'_Scared? Why should he be? He, the Master and the other boy are looking for us after all.'_

'_That is true, sister dear, but I don't think he realised that it were we that the Master was asking them to seek the aid from.'_ The giggly voice replied.

Balthazar turned in slow circles, staring suspiciously at the trees around him.

"Are you dryads?" he asked uncertainly. As soon as he asked he found himself throwing himself backwards on to the soft ground as a pretty green woman stepped out from the tree closest to him. Another green woman stepped out from a tree to his right, both of them smiling down at him with a great deal of humour and interest.

'_Well, of course. What else did you expect us to be?'_ the first woman asked him.

"I-I don't know." He muttered, trying to still calm his racing heart.

'_I think we've scared him again, sister.'_ The giggly one said as she came over to him, her hand held out stretch to help him up.

"Ah, well I see that Balthazar has found you both quite well." Balthazar looked around to find his Master and Maxim coming towards them. Merlin walking calmly, smiling his greets to the two dryads who both welcomed him warmly, while Maxim followed a bit behind, his mouth hanging open in slight disbelief.

"How did you..?" He started to whisper as he came to stand by his side as they watched Merlin tell the Dryads of their plans for Veronica's birthday.

"I have no idea." He whispered back, wincing a little at the excited squeals that both the dryad woman gave to the idea.

'_I like the little girl.'_

'_Yes, she is very sweet. And so polite too.'_

'_We'd love to help you create a garden for her.'_

"How does it feel like our present to her is now everyone's present for her?" Maxim whispered to Balthazar who just shrugged. At least now something might actually grow in the mounds of dirt that they had made to be flower beds.

* * *

"Where are we going?"

"It's a surprise."

"But why do I need to wear a blind fold for?"

"That's to keep it a surprise."

"So no peeking."

"I'm not peeking." Veronica muttered impatiently as the two male apprentices mysteriously led her, blind-folded, out of the Tower at midday of her eleventh birthday. "But I just might if you two keep letting me bump into things and trip over stairs." She added a little crankily. She heard the boys' chuckle on either side of her rather sheepishly.

"Can't I take this off yet? It's getting itchy and it's too hot to have something so heavy over ones face." She grumbled causing the boys to simply laugh harder at her.

"Not yet." Balthazar told her kindly, squeezing her arm that he held reassuringly. "Still got a little bit further to go."

"Oh alright." She mumbled, trying to sound a little gracious about the whole thing but only to find herself tripping on yet another stair.

"Maybe we should just carry her." Maxim said. She could tell that he was only barely restraining his laughter. She aimed a kick at him, which ended up hurting her just as much as she could hear it had hurting him. She was just wondering if she was going to get an answering blow to her own shins when she felt herself being picked up into a pair of strong but wiry arms and held close, much like a baby or small child to a warm, earthy smelling chest.

She let out a small squeak and could her cheeks heat up at being held so close to him, so close that she could hear his heart beat.

"Aw. Balthazar, you should see her face." Maxim teased, chuckling, giving her hair a fond ruffle. She felt her face grow even hotter and she kicked out madly, trying to hit some part of her annoying older not related by blood brother.

"Maxim, leave her alone. It is her birthday after all." Balthazar said calmly somewhere above her head, soothing her annoyance towards the older boy as he gave a resigned little sigh.

"Alright here we are. You can take the blind fold off." Balthazar said as they stopped shortly after he first picked her up, now placing her gently on to the ground.

She felt her face contort into a frown. Why could she smell freshly turned dirt? And there was something else too, something far sweeter and… she pulled the blind fold from her eyes and blinked. And blinked again, her eyes unable to take in what they were seeing. She rubbed them fiercely before once again looking around her.

"Is this an illusion?" she asked the two grinning boys on either side of her. They both grinned down at her and gave her a little push, forcing her legs to start walking around this strange new world.

It was a garden!

A garden that she could have sworn hadn't been there yesterday, but here it was. Glancing back at the two boys, both of whom seemed to be more than a little proud and smug with themselves, to make sure that they really weren't pulling her leg or anything along those lines, she walked over to a rose bush where the most beautiful red roses that she had ever seen grew.

She sniffed them and felt a tear prick in her eyes; they smelt exactly like the ones her Grandmother grew.

She walked around the garden. It was created within a courtyard that was barely ever used and she would not have known of it if it weren't for the many times that it had been used as a hiding spot for one of the boys in their games of hide n seek or when they were simply running after each other with wooden swords in hand.

She felt her heart grow so warm and light as she took in everything that was now growing there. All colours of the rainbow, with still room here and there for her to add her own additions to the garden, her garden?

She looked back to where the boys stood, still at the entrance of the garden, both of them still grinning madly, their Master, she now noticed was standing with them, looking just as pleased about the place as they did.

"Is this mine?" she asked softly in a slow unsure voice.

"No, Veronica, of course it's not yours. You're only allowed in here for the day." Maxim said, rolling his eyes at her only to be cuffed over the back of his head by both their Master and Balthazar, both of whom looked completely exasperated at him.

"Ignore him little one. Getting dirt all over his clothes and himself did not agree with him." Merlin told her soothingly, ignoring the exasperated look that Maxim was now giving him.

"So, all this, is mine?" she asked again, hope building in her as she saw all three nodding at her, smiling at her fondly. She felt happy tears swelling up in her eyes as through herself at the three of them, hugging each one of individually, sobbing her thanks as she did so, until she had completely embarrassed her two fellow apprentices close to death.

"Alright, alright. We get it. You really like our gift, a lot." Maxim mumbled his face a dusky red colour now as he gently pried Veronica little arms from around his waist, though he did give her hair another affectionate ruffle. She beamed up at him before once more turning to her garden.

Her very own garden!

Balthazar grinned down at her as he slowly followed her around the garden, her little hand clutching his large hard one tightly as she softly told him about each and every flower and plant that they had put in the garden simply because they had smelt nice or looked pretty and Merlin and the dryads had managed to get their hands on them.

"So, you like?" He asked her softly.

She beamed up at him, looking absolutely delighted by everything she saw. "Very much." She wrapped her arms around him again, giving a very quick kiss on his cheek. Though quick, it still had him blushing madly which she either didn't notice or was simply ignoring as she mumbled. "Thank you Balthazar."

* * *

"Balthazar? Hey, Balthazar?"

Balthazar stirred from his slumber with a frown. Where the heck was he? He definitely was not in a garden that he, Maxim, Merlin and a couple of dryads had created for Veronica's eleventh birthday.

He opened his eyes warily, taking in his surrounding slowly. It was dark here, and somewhat cool and didn't smell all the particularly nice, like pollution or something, like that. He groaned. He was obviously dreaming again of better times.

Why had this idiot have to go and wake him up for?

He scowled fiercely at the young man who stood a short distance from where he was sitting. However his scowl seemed to do little but course the young man to sigh in exasperation. His mind then clicked and all his hundreds of year flowed back to him, as did the past year which caused him to straighten quickly from his original slouch at the table.

"You know, you're the one who told me to do this, the least you could do is not fall asleep when I'm doing it." Dave was grumbling as he stomped from where he had been standing in the middle of Merlin's circle to where Balthazar sat, taking one of the Pepsi cans that stood there and cracked it open, flopping into a chair himself.

"I don't remember telling you that you could have a break Dave." He replied calmly, pointing to his cup of tea, causing it to heat up once more.

"You were asleep, what does it matter?" Dave argued, taking a huge gulp of the fizzy drink, causing Balthazar to wrinkle his nose in displeasure. The different types of coffee he could deal with, occasionally, fizzy drink? Never.

"It matters that your illusion spells are so bad that they send me to sleep."

"I resent that. I think I made a pretty good version of King Kong on top of the Empire States Building." Balthazar simply rolled his eyes at his apprentice. "I bet your first couple Illusions weren't that great either." Dave added.

Balthazar ignored him, taking a sip of his tea, glad that Veronica wasn't present for this particular lesson as he was sure that she would be at this very moment be informing Dave, with some glee too he was sure, of his masterful destructive ends to all of the castles, buildings and towers he had created in his first couple of tries at creating illusions.

Veronica's illusions had always been brilliant, well when there were flowers involved in them, they were.

Flowers…

"Dave." He said with such firmness that the boy immediately stopped his grumbling to listen. "I need your help with something."

"Magical help?" the boy asked, looking more than a little doubtful. He shook his head.

"Nope, manual help."

"Ok, I'll bite. What with?"

"Well, Veronica's birthday is coming up and…"

* * *

"Balthazar?"

"Yes?"

"Where are we going?"

"Outside the back the shop."

"And since when has going outside the back of the shop entitled me having to wear a blind fold."

"Since it's a surprise." Even with the blind fold covering her eyes, he knew that she was rolling them at him and his somewhat gleeful tone.

"May I take it off now?" she mumbled. He felt himself grin a little broader. She had obviously smelt what he had spent the past three weeks trying to hide from her sensitive nose.

"Balthazar…" she trailed off as he gently untied the silk scarf from around her eyes and she blinked at what had once been a rather overgrown and cluttered little courtyard at the back of their shop that had now been transformed into the gardens that she had loved so dearly but could never have back for time stood too strongly in her way.

"Balthazar did you...?"

"We helped." Dave injected from where he and Becky had come out into the courtyard behind them. "Well, we helped Becky." He added, glancing sheepishly at the pretty blonde beside him who simply rolled her eyes affectionately back at him.

"These two don't have much of green thumbs." Becky translated for her as she warmly handed over a small pot of different herbs to her.

Veronica smiled fondly back at the girl who grinned back.

The two of them walked around the small courtyard chattering over all the different flowers and plants that were now growing there, while the two males stood back by the back door, both shaking there heads bemused by the whole thing.

"Thank you very much." Veronica said, her eyes transfixed on her new little garden, delight feeling her eyes as she took it all in.

Becky beamed happily, while Dave gave an embarrassed little shrug of his shoulders muttering 'it was nothing, really."

Veronica smiled at her beloved who, like Dave, was looking away embarrassed, his ears taking on a soft red tone.

When the two youngsters left, it took all of her will power for her not to simple tackle her beloved and hug him until she quite possibly embarrassed him to death. Restraining herself from doing just that, she simply slipped her hand into his, squeezing gently as she smiled up at him.

"Thank you so much, from the bottom of my heart." She said, shaking her head as she looked back in the direction of her new garden, still not quite believing that it was there.

"You are very welcome." He mumbled, shifting uncomfortably but pleased all the same by her extremely positive response to her birthday present.

He smiled down at her, leaning over gently to kiss the top of her head, mumbling softly, "Happy Birthday."

She beamed back at him, before tilting her head to one side, thinking.

"What?" he asked curiously.

"Hmmm, just thinking on what to give you for your birthday, it's not very far off now is it?"

He shrugged. "I don't want anything. I have you back with me and that's the best present anyone could ever give me."

"Oh, really?" there was a mischievous glint to her eyes which made his own narrow slightly.

"Yes."

"Well, I was going to wait until your birthday to tell you but…" she stood up on her tip toes and whispered something into his ear that made him freeze where he stood.

Shaking her head a little, she walked up stairs to their living quarters, giggling ever so slightly to herself at her beloved reaction to her early birthday present for him.

Balthazar shook himself, recovering from his shock and feeling a small smile cross his lips. Alright maybe this was the best present that he had ever received but only just.

His face now breaking slowly into the mad grin of his youth he moved quickly after his wife to demand why she was planning on waiting til his birthday to tell him this great news.

_fin_

* * *

**Author's Note:** Merry Christmas and Happy New Year


	19. Coffee House

**Author's Note:** I don't know where this came from. Boredom I think.  
Anyway enjoy!

* * *

**19. Coffee House**

Becky had a great many friends, both female and male, all of whom she got on well with. They had always been there for her when she had needed them to be and she was there for them in their time of need. But right now, however, in her time of need, she could not think of a single one she wanted to call, to talk her problem over with. Mainly because most of them would see her problem as not being a problem at all rather as a wonderful solution to something that she didn't see as a problem but they did.

The whole thing was a disaster! She clapped her hands over her face in despair.

What was she going to do? This wasn't like any of the other times that something like this had happen. This was so much more important, so much more terrible then those other times.

She pulled out her mobile and checked for any messages or missed calls or the possibility that it might just start ring with her holding it. Nothing, nudda, zilch.

"Call me, Dave." She begged softly to her phone, but it simply remained silent, cold and motionless in her hand. She shoved it back into her pocket, where she would clearly hear it ring and feel it vibrate if anyone, hopefully him, should ring her.

She did yet another round of all his favourite spots, finding him in none of them. Nor did she find, to her growing worry, his Master sorcerer and his wife, in any of their usual hidey holes either. Waves of sickness rolled through her stomach. She had messed up, big time.

She smacked her head on the wall outside of the reclaimed Arcana Cabana, fighting back tears that were threatening to fall.

"Becky?"

She let out a startled squeal, almost toppling down the shop's front stairs, only to be stopped from doing so by a small, pale but strong hand grabbing her wrist, steadying her on the top step. Becky swayed there for a moment, before turning to her saviour, fighting back the growing ill feeling in her gut.

"Veronica?"

The older woman looked at her with great concern.

"Becky, are you alright?"

"Alright?" she winced at the squeak in her voice, but her hysteria was starting to take her over. Veronica seemed to understand this and quickly opened the front door of the shop, placing the bags of groceries just inside the doorway, before locking the door again and gently took hold of the younger woman's arm and pulled her back on to the street.

"Where are we going?" Becky squeaked, quite startled by this rather sudden turn of events.

"To that coffee place of yours." Becky looked at her confused, causing the older woman to smile apologetically back at her.

"We don't have any coffee back home and you look like you could use one. That or some alcohol but I don't think I'll let you anywhere near any of that stuff while you are like this."

"So?" Becky asked, still not quite catching on to what exactly was going on.

"I'm taking you to get a cup of coffee and so that you can talk, if you need to or want to." Veronica replied gently.

"I do." Becky mumbled.

"A coffee or to talk?"

"Both." The girl moaned. Veronica gave her arm an affectionate squeeze; her heart went out to the girl. She knew the face that Becky wore at this very moment quite well, as she herself had worn it also when she had been around Becky's age and a bit older.

They walked the rest of the way to the Coffee House in silence. When they arrived Becky was more than a little hesitant to go in until she was absolutely sure that no one she knew was in there.

"I don't want…" she started but Veronica held up her hand to silence the still greatly distressed young woman.

"I understand completely." She said and this seemed to soothe the pretty blonde greatly.

They entered and Veronica found herself immediately wrinkling her nose. She really was never going to get use to all the different smells of this modern day world. Especially, this one.

Becky giggled nervously as she noticed her companion's wrinkled nose. Veronica forced her face to straighten before smiling apologetically at the younger woman.

"I'm sorry, it just so…"

"Strong?"

"Yes." She nodded empathetically causing the girl to laugh again this time from amusement rather than her nerves.

"You'll get used it, I'm sure. Trust me, Coffee is a god sent." Becky mumbled softly as she walked over to the huge menu of all the different types of coffees that the Coffee House had to offer.

"Hmmm, well it does seem to be an effective way of getting Balthazar to wake up in a good mood." Veronica admitted, trying to not think too deeply about some of the names of the varies types coffees that were present on the menu. Becky gave another laugh, sounding more like herself, though the distressed look in her eyes still remained.

"Yeah, it is pretty useful for that. Some days, I don't think I could make it through the day without some type of coffee in my system."

"Balthazar simply drinks his black. Easy to make but I can't stand the smell of it." Veronica shuddered a little and her nose once more wrinkled as a customer passed them with a particularly strong brew.

"Have you tried any other types of coffee besides black?" Becky asked. Veronica shook her head.

"I've drunk mostly tea but even they taste strange to me. I don't mind the drink with the chocolate in it. A bit sweet but I don't feel ill or revolted by it."

"Hot chocolate?"

"Yes, I think that's what it's called. Dave introduced it to me a few weeks ago during training. Since it doesn't seem to need milk, he's quite fond of it. Though this maybe due to the fact that Balthazar won't let him drink coffee during training. He says that Dave is 'high, fidgeting and nervous enough without it'." This caused Becky to laugh outright.

"Poor Dave." Becky giggled, before her face dropped and she became once more downcast. Veronica cursed herself for her lack of tack and, after a moment's hesitation, put a comforting arm around the younger woman's shoulders. The girl smiled her thanks, though Veronica could clearly see that the girl was quite close to tears. She quickly hurried her to counter; not even bothering to look back at the menu. It wouldn't have much difference if she had. All the helpful explanations that Becky had given her about what each of the different coffees were, Veronica was quite afraid to say, but that each explanation had sadly, gone straight over her head.

"I think I might just get the hot chocolate one." Veronica said. Becky simply nodded before turning to the woman behind the counter and told her their order. Her, a medium hot chocolate and Becky a large something or other that had far too many words in it for a simple hot drink. She quickly chased the younger woman away when it came to paying; it was she who had brought her here, it was she who was paying. And at least Becky's particular brew didn't smell too horrible when it was ready for them to take over to a little table in a corner of the Coffee House.

She sipped her hot chocolate cautiously, still experimenting with its sweet taste, but quickly found herself smiling a little. It really wasn't that bad, probably the sweetest thing she had ever drunk, not counting the soft drinks that Dave had also introduced her to, but unlike them she could at least see herself drinking this on a daily basis.

"You like it?" Becky asked cautiously taking a sip of whatever her drink was called. She nodded smiling at the younger woman who let out a small sigh of relief. They both fell silent. Veronica waiting for the younger woman to speak her mind while Becky tried to think how to explain what was going on.

_It's not like she really cares about this. Why would she? And she'll probably just hate me for what I've done to him._ She thought glumly to herself. But looking into those kind, understanding brown eyes, Becky felt her self start to give in. She needed to talk to someone about this and since she couldn't get in contact with Dave by phone, email or by person, Veronica was the next best thing to getting a message through to him that they seriously needed to talk. She was after all his Master's wife.

A tear trickled down her cheek.

"He's going to hate me."

"I very much doubt that." Veronica replied soothing.

"No, he is or he already does." Becky groaned, wishing that the earth beneath her would just open up and swallow her whole.

"Why?"

It was asked gently, with no hint of pushing or prying, just a question to ask whether or not she wanted to talk about it. And she did. This woman might end up hating her but at least for the moment she cared enough to be sitting here with her, ready to listen or to just sit in comfortable silence. Becky, despite her surety that this woman would hate her by the time she left the Coffee House, found herself liking Veronica even more.

So taking a deep breath, she began explaining her problem. And she started quite simply with;

"One of my ex-boyfriend came to visit me a week ago. We haven't been together in like over a year but he said he wanted to give us another go, but I said I didn't want to because you know I'm with Dave… was with Dave." She felt another tear threaten to fall, but she forced it back and continued. "And I told him this. I told him I was with Dave, but he-he just laughed. Said that he had heard that I had gotten with a spineless geek and said that I should be with a real man, like him. I tried to get him to leave, tried to hit him actually for saying that about Dave." She scowled furiously as she remembered. "But he grabbed my wrist stopping me from hitting him and…" she trailed off, revolted and still more than a little horrified at how quickly everything had gone down hill. "He kissed me and well Dave just happened to walk into my apartment at that very moment and saw it all. I think he must have heard some of what that… what my ex said about him-us, because he looked so dejected. And I couldn't-I couldn't…"

"Say anything?" Veronica sampled gently. Becky nodded.

"It was like my voice failed me and by the time I had gotten away, he was gone and I couldn't find him anywhere. And I still can't find him and he's not answering his phone or any of the emails I've sent him and-and." Once more Veronica held up a hand to silence her, gently squeezing her hand with the other.

"I do understand." Veronica said gently. "Completely in fact."

"Been in this situation before?" Becky asked weakly, before taking a huge gulp of her coffee.

"A similar one to this, but still rather different, but I might tell you about that another time. At the moment we are dealing with you."

Becky nodded glumly, whispering 'he defiantly hates me."

"No, he doesn't." Veronica replied gently, though with a great deal of surety in her voice causing Becky to frown a little at her.

"What do you mean? I mean, how would you know? I mean, unless he's…" she trialled off, wide eyed and horrified.

"You knew already didn't you? And he sent you to tell me that it's over and-and." She stopped when she saw Veronica rolling her eyes.

"I did know. He did tell us eventually, after much, much prodding from Balthazar."

"Bet he wished he hadn't." Becky mumbled. From what she knew of Balthazar, he had never appeared to her to being exactly thrilled about talking or listening about others relationship.

"He did actually, but he was the one who stuck his foot in it, so to speak." Veronica said shrugging.

"Do you hate me?"

Veronica smiled at her fondly.

"Of course not. Nor does Dave, so you really do need to get that silly notion out of your head."

"But how can he not?"

"Quite easily, really. He doesn't think that he's good enough for you, so as upset as he is about the whole thing, he's quite understanding that you might want someone other than him." she rolled her eyes once more.

"Doesn't think he's good enough…" she trailed off weakly. "How on earth can he think that?" she growled, feeling more than a little annoyed at him now. Veronica simply shrugged.

"So because he doesn't think he's good enough for me, he hasn't been answering any of my phone calls, messages or emails."

"Well, actually, about that." Veronica looked more than a little sheepish. "There is actually a reason for that."

"Huh?"

Veronica sighed, shaking her head slightly, her face filled with mild amusement.

"What?"

"Well you see, when Dave came to training the next day after your misunderstanding and Balthazar and I had gotten out of him why he was so down, Balthazar thought to teach him how to control electricity, with his Tesla coils, to see if that would cheer him up. Not that he would have admitted that was the reason of course."

"Oh…" Becky was starting to get a rather bad feeling about where this story was going. Veronica nodded.

"He's fine. I mean, he just can't go near any sort of ee-lek-tron-ik devices for a couple of days and his hair is standing a little more on end than usual, but overall he is well."

Beck could feel her mouth drop a little.

"So, where is he?"

"Out in the country, somewhere. As far from," Veronica waved her hands around her, "civilisation, as he can possibly get."

"When will he be back?" Becky squeaked.

"I suppose as soon as he stops blowing power boards and mobile phones up." Veronica sighed, "Balthazar won't be getting him to try redirecting electricity again any time soon."

"Wait, wait, that huge city wide black out? That happened about five days ago? That wasn't…" Veronica started nodding her head. Becky felt her mouth drop completely.

"So he's now out in the country side, trying to…?"

"De-charge or something or other. We're not truly sure how this will work out, due to the fact that this has never happen to anyone before."

"Ok-ay. Yup, most definitely different from all my other boyfriends." Becky mumbled, sinking heavily back into her chair, eyes wide and staring sightlessly up at the ceiling above their heads. Veronica simply took another sip of her hot chocolate, letting the young blonde haired woman to think in silence.

* * *

**Author's Note:** A bit different to what I usually write, but I wanted to write a Veronica/Becky bonding moment and I thought Becky worrying about her relationship with Dave, if one of her old boyfriends happen to show up was a good place to start. Also I wrote this during a series of blackouts in my area hence the reason as to _why_ Dave hasn't been responding to all Becky's calls, texts and emails and so on.  
Hope you enjoyed.


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